State Regulators and Trump

State attorneys general and state securities commissioners have

responded to President Trumps threats to reduce federal regulation
and enforcement efforts in the financial services industry.

Both New York Attorney General Schneiderman and Maria Vullo, the
superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services
("DFS"), have made it clear that they will exercise broad authority to
stand in the way of any Federal effort to dismantle the Dodd-Frank
Act, as Trump has promised to do.

Schneiderman said, "Any attempt to gut these consumer and investor

protections would . . . embolden those who seek to defraud and exploit
everyday Americans. The States are the back stop, the states are the
next line of defense after the federal government," and, "[i]t is
embedded in our system of jurisprudence that state laws must be
respected.

Each of the 50 states has some form of "Blue Sky" law that regulates
the offer and sale of securities. In addition, multiple federal statutes
grant state attorneys parallel enforcement authority, and this includes
the Truth in Lending Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the Dodd-
Frank Act. Under Dodd-Frank, a state attorney general or state
securities regulator is authorized to bring a civil action to enforce
provisions of the Act.

State attorneys general and state securities regulators will challenge

the Trump administration with an expansion of state-level activity to
monitor industries benefiting from a decrease in federal regulation. As
Schneiderman put it, "The states are the next line of defense."