By Douglas Gillison
WASHINGTON, Nov 6 (Reuters) – Maxine Waters, the top Democrat on the US House Financial Services Committee, asked fellow Democrats on Friday to return her to the committee chair, a day after Representative Sean Casten launched a challenge for the post.
“It has never been more important to have a proven, effective and innovative leader on the Committee on Financial Services to fight back. I am that leader, and I respectfully ask for your support,” Waters said in a letter Reuters was first to report.
In her letter, Waters promised to target affordable housing, “junk fees,” President Donald Trump’s illegal efforts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, medical debt and credit reporting. Many of those policy areas had underpinned the Democrats’ economic message in this week’s midterm elections.
The Democratic caucus is due in January to begin the next Congress with a large majority and will vote to approve committee assignments.
Waters, 88, a California Democrat among the oldest lawmakers on Capitol Hill, has been the committee’s top Democrat for more than a decade and first took the chair in 2019 during Trump’s first term.
She is campaigning to fend off a challenge from fellow committee Democrat Casten, 54, of Illinois, who announced on Thursday he was seeking the gavel.
In her letter, Waters touted what she said was a record of legislative action on homelessness, predatory lending and promoting diversity and inclusion in financial services. “I know how to strike deals, even with Trump officials,” she wrote.
In his letter on Thursday, Casten, first elected in 2018, cited his experience working in policy, business and science and said he had led efforts to address financial risks related to climate change.
Casten has been an outspoken critic of the crypto industry and its ties to Trump, causing anxiety among industry executives that he could assume control of the committee.
(Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Rod Nickel)
