Dodd

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) has decided against succeeding his close friend and mentor, the late Edward M. Kennedy, as chairman of the Senate's health committee, a senior Senate aide said Tuesday. The decision sets in motion a game of musical chairs involving committee chairmanships after Kennedy's death. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is next in line after Dodd to assume the chairmanship of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Multiple sources, who requested anonymity when discussing internal deliberations, said Harkin was sure to take over the post.

Does the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have the power to trump theU.S. Supreme Court? That's the intriguing question raised by a seemingly routine announcement last week that the watchdog agency is seeking public comments on "how consumers and financial services companies are affected by arbitration and arbitration clauses. " "Arbitration clauses are found in many contracts for consumer financial products," the bureau's director, Richard Cordray, said in a statement.

Re "What my father saw at Nuremberg," Opinion, Oct. 1 When politics bloom, rewriting history becomes fair game. However, Sen. [Christopher] Dodd extrapolates beyond reason to prove his point. "When we entered World War II, we did not fight for land or for treasure -- we fought for an idea." Noble, but not factual. Born in 1944, Dodd has an excuse for not remembering that America entered the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war. Their actions provided the cause.

Hollywood loves comeback stories. Will SOPA/PIPA be one of them? The anti-piracy bills that were working their way through Congress with Hollywood's blessing got tanked by a massive online campaign - petitions, website blackouts, even T-shirts. From 1981 until 2010, Christopher J. Dodd was a Democratic senator from Connecticut. A year later, as head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, he was dealing with SOPA/PIPA fallout. Showing up at the Oscars - which he will do - is just the tip of the MPAA job. Dodd has arranged matinees for veterans at MPAA's theater in D.C., worked on film trade matters, and postelection, he'll try out an anti-piracy law sequel.

In his previous foray into Hollywood, former U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd played himself in the 1993 political satire "Dave. " Now, he is cast in a far tougher role as head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, the lobbying arm for Hollywood's movie and TV studios and frequent exponent of American popular culture. Hollywood has been without a permanent industry lobbyist for nearly a year since former Rep. and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman stepped down after a troubled tenure.

Legislation to be unveiled Monday by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd to overhaul the financial regulatory system is likely to be more modest than either the Obama administration's proposal last summer or a plan Dodd pushed last fall. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, was set to release detailed legislation for the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression, which Democrats want to pass before the fall elections. Tightening federal oversight of the financial system is designed to prevent a repeat of the banking-system meltdown in 2008 and is a priority of President Obama.

President Obama may be forced to accept a watered-down version of his proposed consumer protection agency to get a sweeping overhaul of financial regulations approved by Congress. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) is circulating a proposal that would scrap plans for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which Obama has touted as crucial to protecting consumers from predatory mortgages, credit cards and other products. He and administration officials say the agency is key to avoiding a repeat of the financial crisis that rocked the country in 2008.

With memories of the financial crisis already fading, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd tried to jump-start the stalled effort to pass a major regulatory overhaul this year that would protect the public from another economic meltdown. Dodd's latest version of the legislation, unveiled Monday, is more modest than the ambitious ideas President Obama called for a year ago, but it still would be the most sweeping financial reforms since the Great Depression. With the Connecticut Democrat unable to secure any Republican support after weeks of intense negotiations -- and with the legislative clock winding down -- he warned that senators needed to act soon to prevent a financial fiasco from again severely shaking U.S. and world markets.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) underwent surgery for prostate cancer and was recuperating at a New York hospital. Dr. Peter Scardino of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center said the surgery was successful and Dodd was resting comfortably. "It is anticipated that he will be able to return to full activity within a few weeks," Scardino said in a statement released by Dodd's office. Dodd, 65, is expected to remain at the hospital for a few days before returning home to Connecticut.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd said he would refinance two home mortgages that were being investigated by a Senate ethics panel. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, said he sought no special treatment from Countrywide Financial Corp. when he refinanced his Washington and East Haddam, Conn., homes in 2003. He has acknowledged participating in a VIP program. The bank, a leading subprime lender at the center of the mortgage meltdown, was sold to Bank of America Corp.

Motion Picture Assn. of America Chief Executive Chris Dodd is calling on Silicon Valley and Hollywood to jointly fight the entertainment industry's biggest enemy: piracy. The former U.S. senator from Connecticut said it was time for California's two signature industries to stop sparring over the issue of rampant online piracy. "We have so much in common," Dodd told a gathering of scientists and engineers who work for the entertainment industry. "There is so much we can accomplish together — for our customers and for the millions of Americans we employ.

Putting his stamp on the Motion Picture Assn. of America, former Sen. Christopher J. Dodd has assembled his own team of top-level executives at Hollywood's chief lobbying organization. Dodd, who was tapped in March to run the MPAA, announced Thursday that Lori McGrogan, his former chief of staff in the Senate, will be brought in as his senior advisor, assisting in strategic and long-term planning as well as day-to-day operations. Laura Nichols, formerly a senior fellow for the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C., think tank, will head up the MPAA's communications team.

The most far-reaching overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression reached its first birthday with fresh criticism of its effectiveness and a new attack on one of its major reforms. Republicans and industry groups have used the occasion to lambast the law for what they call dangerous government overreaching. Not only has it failed to heal the economy, they said, but it has added to the uncertainty that has kept businesses from hiring more people. "It has turned the financial regulatory landscape into a nightmare," Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)

Just a year ago, banking executives argued vehemently against the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression, saying the law enacted then would stifle innovation and erode profits. But in the last two weeks, they have been reporting billions of dollars in profits — including a record quarter for Wells Fargo & Co. — with nary a word about how the so-called Dodd-Frank financial reform law was hindering them. "Name me one significant thing that Dodd-Frank has done to alter the behavior of these banks," said Ted Kaufman, a former U.S. senator from Delaware who led the push for stronger financial regulations last year.

Bob Pisano is stepping down as president and chief operating officer of the Motion Picture Assn. of America after nearly six years on the job. Pisano's departure was expected after the board of the MPAA, which acts as Hollywood's chief lobbying arm on Capitol Hill, hired former U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd as its chairman and chief executive this year. The MPAA is not expected to fill Pisano's position. A spokesman for the group said Pisano's departure was a "mutual decision" reached with Dodd.

As the events leading up to World War II go, Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 appointment of a naïve history professor as ambassador to Germany — and the professor's decision to take his adventurous adult daughter with him — rank pretty low in importance. But in these lives, Erik Larson, author of "The Devil in the White City," finds a terrific storytelling vehicle, as William E. Dodd and his daughter, Martha, are initially taken with Adolf Hitler and his reinvigoration of Germany, and then slowly come to realize that nothing would stop Hitler from waging war and seeking to wipe out Europe's Jews.

Bob Pisano is stepping down as president and chief operating officer of the Motion Picture Assn. of America after nearly six years on the job. Pisano's departure was expected after the board of the MPAA, which acts as Hollywood's chief lobbying arm on Capitol Hill, hired former U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd as its chairman and chief executive this year. The MPAA is not expected to fill Pisano's position. A spokesman for the group said Pisano's departure was a "mutual decision" reached with Dodd.

In his first speech to Hollywood since becoming head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America nine days ago former Sen. Christopher J. Dodd delivered a reassuring message about the state of the movie business. Dodd, speaking at the annual gathering of the cinema owners in Las Vegas on Tuesday, acknowledged concern about this year's falloff in theater attendance — which is down about 20% so far this year — but predicted that the slowdown would be temporary. "I for one do not believe the sky is falling," Dodd said.

In a bid to open doors in China, Hollywood's new chief lobbyist simultaneously prodded and praised the country's creative community during his keynote speech at the Shanghai International Film Festival. At Monday's event, Motion Picture Assn. of America Chief Executive Christopher J. Dodd urged the Chinese film community to broaden its engagement with the world and suggested Hollywood expertise could help it reach its full potential. "China's movie market is a success story in the making," Dodd said.

A bit of the old Jack Valenti pizazz is back at Hollywood's outpost in the nation's capital, thanks to a new silver-haired frontman. More than six years after the legendary lobbyist stepped down, the Motion Picture Assn. of America is reviving his tried-and-true methods of tapping entertainment industry glitz to help the major movie studios make their case to Washington's power brokers. The strategy was on display the night before the recent White House Correspondents Assn.