Daily Kos delivers 130,000 'stop Larry Summers' petition signatures to Sen. Sherrod Brown

From the moment rumor first spread on July 23 that President Obama would appoint Larry Summers as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, Daily Kos was out the gate—with a petition to the White House opposing him. Appointing Larry Summers would effectively reward the Wall Street bankers who played Russian Roulette with our economy, and be an insult to women everywhere. We gathered over 130,000 signatures from the Daily Kos community, one of our most successful petitions to date.

Meanwhile, Democratic Senators—led by Sen. Sherrod Brown—were concurrently organizing their support around another contender for the position, Federal Reserve Vice-Chair Janet Yellen. Unlike Larry Summers, Yellen has a record of identifying some of the impending threats related to the housing bubble and shadow banking that contributed to the 2008 financial collapse. Over 29,000 Daily Kos members signed onto the letter being circulated by the Democratic Senators to organize support for Yellen’s appointment.

As the White House learned of the opposition to their leaked appointment considerations, they implemented a full-court press on the Democratic Senators in an attempt to sway their opinions––urging the senators to support any appointment made by Pres. Obama. This internal party dissension has not fully come to a head but will play out over the coming weeks leading up to the appointment.