Durbin said to oppose Obama's choice for Treasury chief

Second-ranking Senate Democrat Richard Durbin will oppose the nomination of Antonio Weiss to a top Treasury position, a Senate Democratic aide said today.

Durbin of Illinois, a congressional ally of President Barack Obama, has concerns about Weiss's work on corporate inversions, said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the senator's views.

Obama last week nominated Weiss, global head of investment banking at Lazard Ltd., to be Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance. Lazard, a merger advisory firm, has been involved in several tax-inversion deals, in which companies reduce taxes by moving their addresses overseas.

On Nov. 14, a person familiar with Senator Elizabeth Warren's position said she opposes Weiss's nomination because of his work on corporate tax inversions.

Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Nov. 17 that while he's not ready to make a final judgment on Weiss's nomination, he is concerned.

“It's a pretty good nonstarter for me,” Sanders said. The moves highlight tensions within the Democratic Party over the influence of the finance industry.

In addition, Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who co-wrote anti-inversion legislation in 2004, said in a statement last week that the nomination showed the Obama administration's hypocrisy and that he would be asking tough questions of Weiss in confirmation hearings.

Banking Policies

In the Treasury job, Weiss wouldn't be responsible for tax policy. Instead, he would coordinate policies on banking, debt financing, capital markets and regulation. The undersecretary also works on implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial law.

John Podesta, a counselor to Obama, said last week that Weiss would endorse efforts to curb corporate inversions.

“Mr. Weiss would support reforms in that regard because the net effect of that is to essentially use the inversion method to avoid taxation in the United States, and that's not right,” Podesta said in an interview Nov. 14.

Lazard has its legal address in Hamilton, Bermuda, after taking advantage of a gap in an anti-inversion statute that the Treasury Department later closed.