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Misplaced Blame in the Loan Crisis
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Eliot Spitzer's tirade against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency so profoundly muddles the law of federal preemption that one wonders whether he has read the many cases -- including those in which he was a losing litigant -- that have applied this rule for almost 200 years.
The rule derives from the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and is quite simple: The states have no authority to interfere with the operations of nationally chartered banks. For Mr. Spitzer to characterize the OCC's enforcement of this rule as "an unprecedented assault on state legislatures" is nonsense.
The OCC has a good record on predatory lending. When the OCC put out the regulation that Mr. Spitzer attacked, we included strong provisions addressing such lending. The OCC was also the first federal banking agency to sanction banks for engaging in unfair and deceptive practices in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act, and it maintains a world-class ombudsman and consumer assistance office that has helped myriad bank customers in their dealings with banks.
Mr. Spitzer was also off the mark in repeatedly characterizing the OCC's actions as those of "the Bush administration." I was appointed comptroller by President Bill Clinton for a term that carried into the next administration, and the OCC's actions during my tenure were those of the OCC alone.
At no time did we receive any direction from anyone in the Bush administration with respect to our enforcement of the long-standing rules on preemption.
JOHN D. HAWKE JR.
Washington
The writer was comptroller of the currency from 1998 to 2004.
