Just months after he took office, Schneiderman reversed the position of his predecessor – current Gov. Andrew Cuomo – and rang the alarm on a settlement being negotiated by 50 state attorneys-general he saw as too lenient toward the big banks.
“Most of the American people do not feel there has been a full airing out of these issues, and they do not like the fact that people who caused these problems have not been held accountable,” Schneiderman said.
Schneiderman’s move may torpedo a carefully-negotiated $20 billion settlement, and state and bank officials met in Washington Friday for last-minute talks to salvage the deal. It has infuriated Wall Street and many of his fellow attorneys-general, who see him as an irresponsible, dishonest grand stander. But it’s also put him in the forefront of a fledgling liberal alternative to Obama whose tendrils can be seen sprouting in Elizabeth Warren’s Massachusetts Senate campaign, in former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold’s new group Progressives United, and in the attorneys-general joining Schneiderman’s criticism of the bank deal.
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