BofA Associate Death - Congressional Oversight
For those seeking to hold BofA management accountable for last week's tragedy, the government committees with jurisdiction over this would be Financial Services and Education and the Workforce in the House, and the Banking Committee and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) in the Senate.
- House Financial Services is reachable by phone at 202-225-7502. They also run a Whistleblower Form for financial crimes on the committee's website. I would encourage anybody with direct knowledge of the working conditions and management decisions that led to Leo's death to fill out a report.
- House Education and the Workforce is reachable through their website's contact form, or by phone at 202-225-7502
- The Senate Banking Committee is reachable by phone at 202-224-7391
- The Senate HELP Committee is reachable by phone at 202-224-5375
Senators and Congressmen on the relevant committees, who are either veterans, or have professional experience in banking / private equity, are listed below. I'm unable to post direct links as a throwaway new user, but they have contact forms on their websites, and I would highly encourage anyone who is one of their constituents to contact them directly regarding this situation:
- Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) is a member of the Banking committee and a Ranger-tabbed Army veteran
- Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is a member of the HELP committee and a former member of the Army reserve; in addition to his email, his website includes the # to his Boston office, 617-565-8519
- Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) is a member of the HELP committee; his experience at Bain Capital should give him firsthand experience about how tragic and unnecessary Leo's death was
- Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH, 8th District) is a member of House Financial Services and a former Army Ranger
- Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA, 3rd District) is the ranking member of the House Education/Workforce Committee and a former member of the Army National Guard and Reserve
- Rep. John James (R-MI, 10th District) is a member of the House Education/Workforce Committee and a former Ranger-tabbed Army pilot
This is extremely naive, unfortunatly. No one in Washington cares about a tiny, tiny handful of 22 year olds from elite colleges making 5x the median US wage.
Maybe you're picturing a congressional hearing where a bipartisan group of politicians shriek hysterically at big bank CEOs on behalf of analysts. It's like 20929292993x more likely that they'd be screaming about why the fuck analysts make so much money and why we need higher taxes and/or no more too big to fail.
What do you think some senator will say about this after sitting in meetings about wounded young veterans, homeless people, and poor single mothers? Probably to stop wasting his time...
Expecting results from random people contacting the House/Senate is perhaps naive.
However, trying to achieve Congressional attention or some very specific result might be plausible, depending on the details.
We (like many firms) were affiliated with certain lobbying groups, and through our connections and lobbying ties, were were able to get things passed and signed into law at the Federal and State level... (Nothing super exciting).
However, there is a lot more to the process, and it requires lobbyists to write up certain proposed draft legislation, to amend other legislation, and then to work with each of several offices, and using contacts to get it priority attention, and also doing analysis of each seat and who their competition next election might be, and to look at which current donors might support or oppose to, and so much more. It's a long and intense process, and is not what that average person assumes for getting it done.
Any calls, or general emails to Congressional offices are generally assigned to an intern -- mostly, because these calls/emails are usually angry, and the rest of the staff doesn't want to deal with it. The key is that you (or your lobbying people) need to be on good terms with the Legislative Aide (LA) assigned to that topic; the Legislative Director (LD) who oversees it, the Chief of Staff (CoS), or the Representative/Senator. (I knew some of these people from college, or my political involvement, and our lobbying people knew people also).
My point is that contacting Congressional offices might not be productive... but, getting some attention is at least possible to achieve, if handled properly.
It should be noted, however, that each bank will usually give a max-level donation to each relevant office, and some have given significant donations to various political action committees (PAC) that also advocate for them... the unfortunate result is that it's very unlikely to get any elected office to act against a bank who is a donor.
My point is that achieving progress via the legislative process; is possible, but involves a lot more than what most people imagine.
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