Senate Banking Committee Has Two New Democratic Members

The Senate Banking Committee, one of the most coveted committees in Congress, has gained two new Democratic members, Senator-elect Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Senator Tina Smith (D-MN). They will replace Senators Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), who both lost their re-election races in November.

The ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, Sherrod Brown (D-OH), told Politico that the committee lost two “conservative members” in Senators Donnelly and Heitkamp while picking “up a progressive and a conservative.” Senator Brown also said, “I don’t know Sinema… I don’t talk to her. I’ve never seen her in action. I know that she’s not been exactly where I am politically but it’s a big country. I worked with Heidi and Joe.”

Senators Donnelly and Heitkamp both voted in favor of the bipartisan financial regulatory relief bill that passed Congress in May, but their colleagues Senators Smith and Brown did not. Then Representative Sinema, who at the time sat on the House Financial Services Committee, also voted in favor of the deregulatory bill.

For the next Congress, the Senate Banking Committee will now be comprised of the following Democrats:

• Ranking Member Senator Brown (D-OH)
• Senator Jack Reed (D-RI)
• Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ)
• Senator Jon Tester (D-MT)
• Senator Mark Warner·(D-VA)
• Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
• Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI)
• Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
• Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV)
• Senator Doug Jones (D-AL)
• Senator Tina Smith (D-MN)
• Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ)