A unlikely alliance emerges in the Senate against the big banks: Elizabeth Warren and J.D. Vance

The 118th Congress is witnessing one of the most unlikely of alliances, particularly in the Senate. It turns out that Elizabeth Warren (D-MS) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) joined forces for a common goal: going after the big banks. The progressive and the Republican worked together on bills that make major financial players uncomfortable, such as recovering executive compensation from failed banks.

Both serve on the Senate's Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee , where they are pushing legislation to fairly recover compensation for executives of failed banks. According to Warren, it was her colleague's approach against Silicon Valley Bank's management that enticed her to join forces. He has been "terrific to work with," confessed the former presidential candidate.

"We have to figure out what is the actual policy of our government, and how do we need to change it to fit with a healthy small and medium regional bank ecosystem. I don’t think that’s true right now," said Vance, who landed in the Senate in early 2023 after enjoying Donald Trump's support in the midterm elections.

The Republican represents the current trend of the Republican party closest to Trump that questions the pro-business free market of the traditional party. He demonstrated this in his push to strengthen rail safety in partnership with his colleague Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and to reduce airline fares.

This bipartisan legislation is intended to go against the big banks, while protecting the smaller ones. "There’s sometimes some concerns from my Republican colleagues — some concerns that I share — that our Democratic colleagues are right to be wary of the power of Wall Street but maybe wrong to collapse Wall Street in with the regional banks and community banks. We have similar instincts in a lot of this stuff, but a lot of us on the Republican side are very interested in protecting the community and regional banks," the Republican told POLITICO.

Both will need to continue to work to get the bill out of Committee and headed to the full Senate, where they will need to persuade their colleagues on both sides of the aisle to send the text to President Joe Biden's desk.

"He and Elizabeth Warren are starting from very different places on a lot of stuff. But he’s going to look at what’s going on at Silicon Valley Bank or at Norfolk Southern, and he has no prior commitment to, ‘Well, I’m sure the free market has this under control’ or, ‘Well, my responsibility here is to take the side of the corporation,'" Oren Cass, executive director of the conservative political group American Compass told POLITICO.