U.S. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, says he plans to retire when his current term ends in January 2007.[@@]
"From President Reagan to George W. Bush, my goal has been to represent my constituents and my district's conservative viewpoint," Oxley says in a statement issued from the seat of his district, in Akron, Ohio.
Because House Republican leadership policies limit committee chairmen to 3 terms, Oxley would have had to step down from his post as head of the Financial Services Committee in January 2007 even if he had stayed in the House.
Oxley has served in Congress since 1981. When the Republicans reorganized House committees in 2001 to combine all financial services oversight under the jurisdiction of one committee, he became the committee's first chairman.
Oxley helped shepherd the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act bill through Congress in 1999. That bill revised securities industry regulation, tore down the wall the Glass-Steagall Act erected between the banking and insurance industries in 1933, and explicitly supported states' right to oversee the insurance industry.
Oxley also helped enact the landmark 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which increased top corporate executives' legal responsibility for the accuracy of the financial information that their companies release.
In recent years, Oxley has been associated with efforts to help create a "road map" for increasing the uniformity of state insurance regulation.
The American Council of Life Insurers, Washington, has been active in efforts to shape Oxley's regulatory modernization efforts and work with him on other legislative issues.
