CFTC's farm roots complicate reform efforts

The L.A. Times reports:

The road to reforming financial regulations winds through the cornfields, hog farms and cattle ranches of America's heartland, and that complicates the Obama administration's already arduous effort to revamp oversight of Wall Street.

Lawmakers from Iowa, Minnesota, Oklahoma and other farm-belt states who sit on the congressional agriculture committees have a surprisingly influential role in the administration's proposed overhaul, which Congress resumes debating today after its summer recess.

Those committees oversee a key regulatory agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and committee members don't want to give up that role for a big reason -- they raise more money from the financial sector than they do from agribusiness.

Campaign contributions are what motivate politicians. Nothing more.