Consumer Protection

Priorities

• Protecting and Strengthening the Dodd-Frank Act and the CFPB - The 2007-2008 financial crisis was the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression: Nearly $13 trillion in household wealth simply disappeared, with the retirement and savings accounts of many swept away. All told, around 9 million individuals were displaced from their homes, many of whom may never again have the opportunity of homeownership. In response, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which has had an deep-seated impact on the financial services industry. Regulators have taken important steps to implement Dodd-Frank. As a result, regulators are on the lookout for systemic risk, have taken steps to prevent future bailouts, have added transparency and structure to the once-opaque derivatives market, reined in credit ratings agencies, and implemented new investor protections. Consumers now have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on their side, which has provided billions in relief to millions of consumers through its enforcement actions, while also regulating industries that have historically lacked strong federal oversight. As Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee, Congresswoman Waters continuously fights to preserve and strengthen Dodd-Frank from partisan and industry attacks to weaken this historic legislation and leave consumers vulnerable to another crisis.

• Ending Predatory Practices by For-Profit, Post-Secondary Schools - Congresswoman Waters has been a longtime advocate in the fight against the unlawful and predatory actions of for-profit post-secondary institutions. Since her time as a Councilwoman in Los Angeles, she has fought to hold for-profit institutions accountable to the students they purport to serve. She continues to be a leading voice in Congress on this issue protecting our most vulnerable students and veterans’ right to a quality education will not riddle them with burdensome and expansive debt, but  will provide them with the opportunity to earn a living and lead productive lives.

• Eliminating Risky Financial Products - The recent financial crisis was sparked by banks and other institutions steering everyday consumers into risky financial products such as subprime mortgages which ultimately led to millions of foreclosed homes or pay day lending loans with exorbitant interest rates that plunged the American consumer further into debt. Congresswoman Waters believes Congress and the federal financial regulators must put an end to their distribution because they are robbing hard-working people of their life savings and robbing the nation of its middle class.

Accomplishments

• Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights - Congresswoman Waters was an original co-sponsor of the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights (H.R. 627).  The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights protects cardholders against arbitrary interest rate increases, excessive fees, due-date gimmicks, and double-cycle billing. The legislation also cracks down on misleading and deceptive marketing by credit card companies, prohibits them from issuing credit cards to minors, and curbs practices that result in high fees on low-income consumers with weak credit histories.  In addition, the bill empowers cardholders by giving them information and rights they need to make important financial decisions.

• Support and Defense of the CFPB - Congresswoman Waters is the lead Democrat supporting and defending the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. With her support, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to date has already returned $5.3 billion to 15 million consumers who have been subjected to unfair and deceptive practices. She has worked with the Bureau to create rules-of-the-road to make sure predatory mortgages never again strip wealth from American families and endanger our economy. Congresswoman Waters has also worked with regulators to institute rules to protect retirees and other investors from the practices that wreaked havoc on savers in 2008.

• Introduction of the CLASS Act - In response to the predatory practices at the nation’s for-profit colleges, Congresswoman Waters, alongside Senator Richard Durbin, introduced the CLASS Act, which forbids schools from including mandatory arbitration and class action ban clauses from enrollment agreements. Mandatory arbitration and bans on class actions effectively prevent students from having their day in court when harmed by a for-profit college. Congresswoman Waters believes that students should have the right to join together and exercise their legal rights to obtain relief if they believed they have been wronged or harmed.

• Divestment from Pay Day Lending Operations - Congresswoman Waters recently held a first-of-its-kind panel of lawmakers and religious leaders to discuss the impact predatory payday and small-dollar lending practices are having in communities across America. Additionally, Congresswoman Waters has also called the country’s most notable endowments and state retirement plans to begin to take steps to divest their interests in one of the country’s largest payday lenders.

Minority and Women Inclusion

Priorities

• Eliminating the Wealth Gap - Currently, wealthy families make nearly 7 times as much as middle class families and 70 times as much as lower class families. Additionally, African-Americans have 13 times less wealth than white households, and Latino’s have 10 times less wealth than white households. This is the widest wealth gap since 1983, when this data was first collected. As Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee and longtime advocate for economic justice, Congresswoman Waters was one of the first and only Members of Congress to have drawn the connection between policy decisions made by our lawmakers and their affect on wealth and opportunity for the middle and lower class. Congresswoman Waters has taken a lead role not only raising awareness of the wealth gap and its consequences, but also in supporting legislation that attempts to address it.

• Minority Owned Businesses - Congresswoman Waters firmly believes that one of the best ways to minimize the wealth gap is to increase minority ownership of business. Businesses are a unique form of wealth generation as they are one of the best and most basic paths to economic empowerment and sustainability for minority communities.  More than 1 in 10 workers, or 13 million people, are self-employed business owners in the United States; these 13 million people hold an amazing 37.4% of the total wealth in America. This is the type of diversified wealth that will sustain a household in the face of another economic crisis, and it is the type of wealth that will help African American and Latino households put a dent in the wealth gap. Recognizing this, Congresswoman Waters is a fierce advocate for finding opportunities for minority owned businesses. She has pushed the White House to employ minority owned asset managers to manage federal pension plans, she is a proud supporter and advocate of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, commonly known as The Black Press, and at every opportunity, Congresswoman Waters has introduced amendments to ensure that minority owned businesses are not being overlooked.

• Diversity and Inclusion in Federal Jobs and Contracting - As the nation’s largest employer, the federal government has a responsibility to have a workforce that reflects the natural diversity of the country. One of the best ways to have a government that is understanding and responsive towards the concerns and needs of the minority communities is to ensure that our laws and policies are being made and implemented with the representation of minority voices. Furthermore, the federal government spends billions of dollars in contracting each year, while only a small percent of these contracts are directed toward minority or women owned businesses. These contracting opportunities often transform smaller businesses into high job producing, medium, and larger size companies. There is no reason why all communities do not have equal access to contracting with the federal government. The persistent lack of diversity across the entire federal government remains one of Congresswoman Waters’ longstanding priorities. From introducing legislation to transforming the structure of the federal financial services sector, Congresswoman Waters is fighting to ensure that the federal government continuously strengthens its diversity efforts across all sectors and industries.

• Diversity and Inclusion in the Private Sector - In addition to recognizing the need for diversity and inclusion in the federal government, Congresswoman Waters is also pushing for more opportunities for minority communities in the private sector. As a member of the Congressional Black Caucus’ diversity task force, Congresswoman Waters continues to closely monitor American corporations, especially those who depend on government contracts and tax preferences, to make sure they are making a diversity effort in Board Rooms, executive suites, and the corporate workplace. She has played an integral role in the task force’s CBCTech2020 initiative, which is a collaborative effort with Congress, industry, and advocates to improve diversity within the tech industry by the year 2020. Working closely with major corporations like Facebook and Twitter, Congresswoman Waters is determined to ensure that all minorities will have an opportunity to be a part of the ever expanding tech industry, highly touted as the industry of the future.

Accomplishments

• Inclusion of the Office of Women and Minorities in the Dodd-Frank Act - Congresswoman Waters included a provision in the landmark Dodd-Frank Act that created offices designated to ensuring the inclusion of women and minorities at the seven federal financial services agencies. Each OMWI office is charged with increasing the participation of minority- and women-owned businesses in the respective agency’s programs and contracts, promoting equal employment opportunity and the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of its workforce and senior management, and assessing the diversity policies and practices of institutions under the agency’s regulation.

• Addressing the Wealth Gap Resolution - In March 2015, Congresswoman Waters introduced the Addressing the Wealth Gap resolution which was originally sponsored by more than 50 Members including members from the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and Congressional Progressive Caucus. Congresswoman Waters’ Wealth Gap Resolution calls on Congress to recognize the wealth gap and the racial wealth gap as a national crisis, and to develop policies focused on its elimination.

• Advocating for Diverse Asset Managers - Congresswoman Waters has been a leader in pushing for more federal opportunities for minority owned diverse asset managers. Last June, the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corp announced a pilot program which will enable small managers, which includes several minority owned firms, to have more opportunity to manage federal pension plans. This pilot program was in direct response to Congresswoman Waters’ advocacy and year-long discussion with the Obama Administration. Additionally, the Congresswoman hosted a Chief Investment Officer roundtable meeting to discuss more opportunities for minority owned asset management firms, the first meeting of its kind ever held by Members of Congress.

• Pushing for Diversity in Television and Entertainment - Congresswoman Waters, along with her colleagues of the Congressional Black Caucus, pressed the Federal Communications Commission to ensure that the merger between Comcast and NBC included enforceable commitments to boost media ownership, programming, advertising and other opportunities for women and minorities. As a result of our efforts, Comcast launched several new minority owned channels, including Magic Johnson’s Aspire and Sean Combs’ Revolt.

• Fighting for Women Veterans - One of Congresswoman Waters’ first pieces of legislation was to establish a women’s bureau in the Department of Veterans Affairs whose focus was to provide advice and make recommendations of policies and programs affecting women veterans and to provide support and administrative services for Women Veterans.

Housing

Homeownership has long been a central element of the American Dream.  However, millions of American families are now at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure.

 
I am focused on finding solutions that will lead us out of both the immediate housing crisis and the larger financial crisis.

Even before analysts and the press were focusing on our current housing crisis, I was working tirelessly to help struggling renters make their monthly payments, which can be as high as half of their income. It’s easy to sometimes forget about this substantial portion of Americans, but it is critical that we continue to support these families.

I am committed to doing everything in my power to keep Americans in their homes. I have been at the forefront of encouraging and promoting loan modifications, housing counseling and mortgage servicer reform. I also am dedicated to fully funding our nation’s public housing and expanding the number of housing choice vouchers so that our nation’s most at-risk individuals can access the safe, decent and affordable housing of their choice.

This housing crisis developed over many years through neglect, so moving forward it is important to fully fund our nation’s housing programs.

Foreign Affairs

The global community is increasingly connected through advances in communications and travel.  We have important economic, diplomatic, cultural, humanitarian and military links with other nations.  Decisions made and actions taken by the U.S. affect the lives of people throughout the world, and what happens elsewhere often affects us.

The international community – made up of individuals, organizations and corporations as well as governments – has the capacity to cooperate and work together on issues such as human rights, HIV/AIDS and other pandemics, the environment, financial stability, security and other important areas.

Criminal Justice

I support effective crime prevention measures to keep our families and communities safe. Those accused of crimes must be treated fairly, and those who are guilty must be punished appropriately and justly.  As an advocate for equality under the law and fair administration of justice, I work with other Members of Congress to develop responses to the challenges in the criminal justice system. 

Mandatory minimum prison sentences interfere with judicial authority and impose “one size fits all” penalties without considering specific circumstances.  In addition, mandatory minimum sentences – especially those related to drug possession – and laws that impose more severe penalties for crack cocaine than powder cocaine have resulted in the incarceration of a disproportionate amount of African Americans. 

While serving in Congress, I have introduced various measures to address problems related to mandatory minimum sentencing.  Most recently, I introduced the Major Drug Traffickers Prosecution Act of 2009 (H.R. 1466).  This bill would restore judicial discretion, end mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, and re-focus scarce federal resources to prosecute major drug kingpins. 

In other areas of criminal law, I have advocated against juvenile life sentences and the death penalty.  Studies have shown significant discrimination in the application of the death penalty, including one that revealed defendants convicted of killing a White person were more than 3 times more likely to be sentenced to death than those who killed a Black person and over 4 times more likely than those who killed a Latino.  Furthermore, doubt surrounding the innocence of some people sentenced to death has prompted some states to recognize the need to either prohibit executions or impose a temporary moratorium on the death penalty. 

I am also concerned about abusive and unconstitutional practices by some law enforcement officers.  The men and women who police our streets and protect our neighborhoods have important responsibilities and face real dangers.  However, they must be held to high standards of professionalism based on codified criminal procedures and policing practices.  They should not be given sweeping power to momentarily strip individuals of their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights – the amendments that govern criminal procedure, restricting and limiting certain government actions.

As a member of the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, I will continue my work to ensure the civil rights and liberties of all people are protected.

Immigration

Therefore, as a member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law, I will continue to work to create a comprehensive immigration plan that balances national security needs with an effective plan that provides a path to citizenship for those who meet stringent requirements.

Health Care

I have been a longtime advocate for quality, affordable health care for all Americans, and therefore I am a leader in the current effort to reform health care and health insurance.
 

Higher Education & Student Loans

The Education issue page is under construction. Please review related documents below, and check back soon for an update.

Waters' Legislation

One of the most important aspects of Congress is developing, making, and monitoring laws. New legislation is passed almost every week. Please contact our office to share your thoughts on current legislation that may affect you, your family and your community.

Learn more about legislation sponsored and co-sponsored by Congresswoman Waters.

In addition, constituents can view the U.S. House of Representatives' latest votes on Capitol Hill and learn how to read the roll call information.