Congressional Republicans Mobilized to Strip Critical Oversight of Mega-Mergers, Ignoring Warnings of Financial Chaos
In a brazen push to empower Wall Street titans, Congressional Republicans lined up votes to dismantle landmark regulations designed to curb reckless bank mergers, sparking outrage among consumer advocates and experts who warn the move could turbocharge consolidation, crush competition, and heighten risks of another financial meltdown.
The GOP-led effort targeted an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) rule, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2025, to strengthen scrutiny of mergers by requiring regulators to rigorously assess risks to financial stability, anti-money laundering compliance, and community needs.
Republicans, who never learned the lessons from ‘too big to fail,’ argue the rule makes it harder for the OCC to approve healthy bank mergers quickly.
Republicans dismantled the Biden-era regulation that was designed to increase scrutiny and curb certain bank mergers using the Congressional Review Act (CRA).
The CRA resolution, led by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) and Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), passed both the Senate and the House largely along party lines and was signed into law by President Donald Trump in June 2025.
“Big government shouldn’t stand in the way of healthy bank mergers that occur in the free market and serve consumers and job creators. In order to stabilize the banking industry and protect the Americans who depend on strong banks, Congress should quickly reverse the Biden administration’s bureaucratic rule,” said Kennedy, a member of the Senate Banking Committee from Louisiana.
Kennedy’s resolution reversed the rule so that banks can gamble with money deposited by hard-working Americans.
The colossal bailouts after the 2008 global economic collapse arguably provoked a ferocious popular backlash.
The rule eliminates expedited reviews and streamlined applications for mergers—tools critics say have rubber-stamped dangerous consolidation for decades.
But Republicans, wielding the Congressional Review Act (CRA), aim to erase these safeguards with a simple majority vote, fast-tracking a gift to banking lobbyists ahead of the election.
New Jersey consumer advocate Lisa McCormick is urging Congress to pursue better banking security measures as a means to counter high tier banking executives from jeopardizing the financial security of those who depend on bank accounts as a safe investment.
“This is a shameless handout to the biggest banks,” fumed McCormick. “Republicans are telling Wall Street: ‘Go ahead, merge into megabanks too big to fail, ignore anti-competitive harms, and trample working-class communities—we’ve got your back.’”
St. Louis-based Commercial Industrial Finance, Inc. was acquired by Republic Bank & Trust Company and its parent company, Republic Bancorp, Inc., on March 15, 2023, leading to the final merger of the two companies on July 1, 2023. Republic First Bank failed in 2024, becoming the sixth-largest bank failure since 2010.
Republic First Bancorp tried to merge first with Liberty Bell Bank in 2021, then in 2022, with an investor group led by George Norcross, but these two deals did not materialize.
On Friday, April 26, 2024, Republic First Bank dba Republic Bank (“Republic Bank”) was closed by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was named Receiver.
Americans remember the bailouts. They don’t want banks playing Russian roulette with their savings,” said McCormick, who compared the total assets of ‘too big to fail’ financial institutions in 2008 vs. 2023:
- JPMorgan Chase: 2008: $1.6 trillion; 2023: $3.7 trillion
- Bank of America: 2008: $1.7 trillion; 2023: $3.1 trillion
- Citigroup: 2008: $2.2 trillion; 2023: $1.7 trillion (they shrank)
- Wells Fargo: 2008: $609 billion; 2023: $1.9 trillion
- Goldman Sachs: 2008: $800 billion; 2023: $1.5 trillion
- Morgan Stanley: 2008: $600 billion; 2023: $1.2 trillion
The OCC’s rule, developed after receiving input from academics, advocacy groups, and even some industry voices, mandates deeper analysis of mergers’ impacts on systemic stability, racial equity, and access to affordable credit.
It explicitly prioritizes public input, extends comment periods, and blocks automatic approvals—a direct response to the 2008 crisis, where lax merger oversight fueled “too big to fail” institutions.
Yet GOP leaders, bankrolled by over $23 million in commercial banking donations this cycle alone, dismiss these protections as “red tape.”
“The Republicans have an obsession with claiming common sense is suffocating our financial sector, but vulture capitalism is killing communities,” said McCormick, sharing data showing bank sizes have exploded under both parties. “Reforms following the global financial crisis of 2008 were supposed to create a less risky financial world, but in politics, money talks, which is why we must outlaw bribery.”
Analysts warn repealing the rule would greenlight mergers like the 2023 collapse of First Republic Bank—a deal expedited behind closed doors—and resurrect the pre-2008 era of unchecked consolidation.
“Rolling back these safeguards is like defunding fire departments while pyromaniacs roam,” said McCormick. “The CRA repeal doesn’t just erase this rule—it bars the OCC from ever issuing similar protections—along with the DOGE attack on the new U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), It’s a corporate coup.”
The OCC’s rule also forces banks to address climate-related financial risks and consider impacts on marginalized communities, provisions loathed by fossil fuel-linked GOP donors.
“Republicans aren’t just fighting regulation—they’re silencing communities already exploited by predatory mergers,” said McCormick, noting Black and Latino neighborhoods disproportionately suffer branch closures and loan deserts after mergers.
McCormick also lambasted the GOP’s “dangerous obsession with deregulation,” vowing to defend rules that protect people. “This isn’t about ‘streamlining’—it’s about letting banks police themselves again,” she said. “They want to reanimate the ghosts of 2008.”
Progressive groups are mobilizing protests, citing polling showing 72% of voters support stricter merger oversight.
“Americans remember the bailouts. They don’t want banks playing Russian roulette with their savings,” said McCormick.
“Regulators should not compound our too-big-to-fail problem,” said Bartlett Naylor of Public Citizen. “As recently as the spring of 2023, the federal government found itself forced to shore up a set of regional banks through the expansion of deposit insurance and government-subsidized mergers.”
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