Cozen Currents: The Democrats’ Oversight Agenda

“As Democrats’ prospects for gaining control of Congress continue to improve, their oversight agenda over the next two years could foreshadow their regulatory agenda come 2029.” — Howard Schweitzer, CEO, Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies

The Cozen Lens

• As the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is in pole position to chair the committee if Democrats win a majority this fall, which would lead to stepped-up oversight of prudential regulators, financial firms, housing regulators, fintechs, and crypto.
• The 2026-27 Supreme Court term began yesterday. The term includes major cases relating to business, elections, and immigration, but the Court’s emergency docket, which features decisions made on an expedited basis without oral arguments, has become increasingly significant during President Donald Trump’s second term.
• The battle for control of Congress has attracted much of the attention ahead of this year’s midterms but voters in a majority of states, including nearly all the 2024 battleground states, will also elect governors this November.

Subscribe to Cozen Currents

Chair Warren’s Agenda

Wielding the Gavel Against the Administration’s Financial Agenda. If the Senate Banking Committee gavel passes to Senator Elizabeth Warren, oversight would become the committee’s primary function.

• Having made a name for herself as a leading proponent of regulation to rein in Wall Street, Warren has frequently criticized Trump-era prudential regulators and their moves to loosen bank capital requirements. As chair, Warren would shape the annual committee hearings with those same regulators, particularly Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, whom Warren has frequently criticized as overly friendly to industry. In addition, Warren would have an opportunity to bring large bank CEOs directly before the committee through annual bank oversight hearings, a tradition begun under former Committee Chair Sherrod Brown (D-OH). And closest to Warren’s heart, leadership of the committee would allow her to call the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to testify, a key issue for Warren given her history with the agency and the Trump administration’s ensuing efforts to close it.
• While Warren has made clear that oversight of prudential regulators and the firms they supervise is a top priority, supervision of housing regulators is a close second. In particular, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte is expected to be a top target of Warren’s. Pulte has yet to testify before either the Banking Committee or the House Financial Services Committee despite a statutory obligation to do so. Warren, among other Democrats, is also a fierce critic of the director’s mortgage fraud investigations into Fed Governor Lisa Cook, among others.
• Nascent financial industries and their regulators, such as crypto and prediction markets, are also expected to fall within Warren’s oversight agenda. The Trump-affiliated World Liberty Financial is a strong candidate for oversight, as is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s decision to grant the company a conditional national trust charter. And while the Senate Agriculture Committee primarily oversees prediction markets, Warren has already shown interest in investigating the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s regulation of both crypto and event contracts.
• Senator Warren also serves on the Senate Finance Committee, positioning her to pair financial regulation proposals with tax policy initiatives targeting private equity and other institutional investors. A Banking Committee gavel would further elevate her influence and could increase the prominence of these ideas in Democratic policymaking and oversight efforts.

Bipartisan Opportunities Around Export Controls and Housing. Beyond oversight, Warren could build momentum for export control and housing bills, where she already has GOP partners.

• Senate Banking holds jurisdiction over export controls alongside its more familiar banking and housing portfolio, and Warren has built a bipartisan coalition of senators interested in setting semiconductor export control policy. Warren cosponsors the AI OVERWATCH Act, the Chip Security Act, and the MATCH Act, all of which aim to limit foreign adversaries’ use of powerful chips. Should those bills not make it into the annual defense policy bill this year, Warren could use her gavel to keep them a priority in the next Congress.
• Having worked closely with Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) to enact the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, Warren is already eyeing additional legislative action to further housing development. Other policy priorities could build on her 2025 American Housing and Economic Mobility Act.

Laying Down Markers on Private Equity. Building on growing Democratic criticism of private equity’s investments in housing, healthcare, and youth sports, Warren is already signaling that regulating the industry will be a priority next Congress.

• Earlier this month, Warren reintroduced an updated version of her “Stop Wall Street Looting Act,” which she described as a strong candidate to follow the housing bill’s restrictions on institutional investors. The legislation would impose a broad array of changes on the industry, including making private equity firms jointly liable for the debts, legal judgments, and pension obligations of the companies they control. It would also bar payouts to investors for four years after a leveraged buyout, tax away the fees firms charge their portfolio companies, and limit interest deductions on buyout debt. A separate provision would close the so-called “carried interest loophole.”
• While Warren’s bill lacks the GOP support needed to pass, it will set the terms for near-term hearings if she chairs the Banking Committee, and it could serve as Democrats’ starting position for regulation if the party wins unified control of Washington in the 2028 elections.

SCOTUS Term Preview

The Emergency Docket. The Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) 2026-27 term began yesterday but its regular docket doesn’t provide the full picture.

• During his second term, President Trump has increasingly sought expedited decisions via SCOTUS’ emergency docket, often called by critics the “shadow docket” because it does not involve oral arguments or full official opinions.
• Trump’s embrace of the emergency docket reached a new level last week when his administration filed its 41st petition on this basis in his current term, matching the total number of emergency applications in his first term in less than two years. This specific case pertained to a Bureau of Prisons policy to withdraw transgender healthcare from federal prisoners.
• Trump’s record of emergency docket petitions far exceeds previous presidents’ use of the legal maneuver. Former President Joe Biden’s administration filed 19 shadow docket petitions and former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush filed three and five petitions, respectively, during their two-term presidencies.
• The emergency (or shadow) docket matters because even if SCOTUS eventually rules against the White House after fully hearing a case, a short-term decision to leave a Trump policy in place can still have real-world impact. It may be difficult or impossible to fully reverse the consequences of the executive action being challenged.
• This legal strategy has brought Trump success: he won over 70 percent of cases on the Court’s emergency docket last term.

Major Cases. The new SCOTUS term includes major cases on business, elections, and immigration.

• Yesterday, the justices heard oral arguments in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, a case brought by Boulder, CO, against energy companies seeking damages for climate change. The case asks whether federal law trumps state law in climate litigation. Today, the justices hear Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee, a case involving breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims under the Employee Retirement Investment Security Act. Other major business cases include Department of Labor v. Sun Valley Orchards, LLC on federal labor enforcement, Salazar v. Paramount Global on consumer privacy rules for video providers, and Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission on eminent domain for natural gas pipelines.
• In December, the justices will hear Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, a challenge to Arizona rules on proof of citizenship when registering to vote and purging voter rolls of noncitizens before an election. This case could reshape voting rules before the 2028 presidential election.
• Immigration enforcement is a signature issue for Trump and this term includes four cases that could shape the future of his immigration agenda. Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. challenges Trump’s policy of deporting migrants to third countries where they have no ties. The Court allowed that policy to continue in an emergency decision last week. Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha challenges the indefinite detention of migrants. Wassily v. Blanche asks whether former asylum recipients are eligible for green cards after losing asylum status. Montoya Palacios v. Liggins asks whether migrants are entitled to attorneys’ fees after a successful habeas petition, which could affect how easily they can challenge their detention.

States of Play

Presidential Preview. Many 2026 gubernatorial elections are highly competitive, with implications for state-level policy and a peek into how key states are leaning before the 2028 presidential election.

• The Cook Political Report ranks five gubernatorial races as toss-ups: Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Alaska. Those first three races, all in states won by former President Biden in 2020 and by President Trump in 2024, will provide a useful barometer at the halfway point between Trump’s comeback victory and the next race for the White House. Republicans hope a combination of outspending Democrats and smart messaging can help them fend off the wave, at least at the gubernatorial level.
• Georgia has become a hotly contested battleground in the Trump era. In 2018, former state Senate Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D-GA) narrowly failed to win the governor’s mansion but Biden flipped the state two years later and Democrats claimed both US Senate seats. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) now is facing off against GOP candidate billionaire Rick Jackson in the race for the governor’s mansion. Concerns about the cost of living and data centers could benefit Bottoms. Last year, two Democrats won seats on the state Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, for the first time in over two decades. This election will test just how much staying power affordability as a political issue really has.
• Incumbent governors who seek re-election usually win another term: according to the Rutgers Center on the American Governor, the incumbent re-election rate was 89.47 percent between 2014 and 2023. In Nevada, Governor Joe Lombardo (R), who defeated former Governor Steve Sisolak (D) four years ago, is facing off against Attorney General Aaron Ford (D). If the political environment is so favorable for Democrats that it outweighs Lombardo’s incumbency advantage, that would be a bad sign for the GOP in a state where labor unions play a prominent role in politics and Trump made major inroads after delivering on his campaign promise of no tax on tips.
• In recent tipping-point state Wisconsin, moderate Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley (D) narrowly defeated democratic socialist state Representative Francesca Hong (D) to run in the general election against Representative Tom Tiffany (R). This victory gave Democrats a better shot at keeping the governorship in this quintessential swing state, and provides a split-screen against neighboring Michigan’s Democratic choice of the progressive Abdul El-Sayed in the Senate race.

The Consequences Start Tomorrow. Without congressional action, decisions on major issues such as data center and AI regulation increasingly occur at the state level.

• Bottoms becoming governor of Georgia would break the state’s Republican trifecta for the first time in 22 years. Lombardo’s re-election, by contrast, would block a Democratic trifecta in Nevada. In Wisconsin, control of both chambers of the state legislature is at stake and 12 of the 17 state Senate seats up this year are held by Republicans, giving Democrats their first opportunity to gain simultaneous control of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature since 2011.
• The growing occurrence of mid-decade redistricting raises the stakes of state elections for determining the makeup of Congress itself. In Wisconsin, a Democratic trifecta would allow them to redraw the state’s maps and erode Republicans’ 6-2 gerrymandered advantage in the state’s US House delegation.
• The race for the governor’s mansion is not disconnected from the other races on the ballot. Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is favored to win re-election this year and is attracting presidential buzz. His coattails could help Bottoms overcome Jackson in Georgia. Similarly, a strong performance by Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton or former Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who lost in 2024 but is now running for the Buckeye State’s other Senate seat, could benefit the other candidate.
• Congress and the White House have made little progress on the biggest political issue of the day: the cost of living. They also haven’t made a dent in the latest, up-and-coming issues, like AI regulation or data centers, leaving a giant chasm that states on both sides of the aisle are filling. While every state is different, each party has been coalescing around a similar set of solutions to many of these problems. Taking more of the map goes a long way toward bolstering one of the sides as a de facto national standard and allows a test run of policies that may become central for a 2028 presidential campaign.

Share

Share this...

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Linkedin