By Kate Irby Perennial candidate Jan Schneider knows beating Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, in an election for his congressional seat will be a challenge. Regardless, she said she sees the campaign as a way to focus on issues in an election season increasingly not focused on policy. "He's gotten away with not commenting on a lot of things, and I'd like to force him to comment," said Schneider, running as a Democrat. Schneider, a Sarasota attorney, has run for the seat five times starting in 2002, dropping out the most recent time before the election. She said those experiences made her a better candidate and, after watching this election season with candidates such as Donald Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, she felt anything could happen. "It's a crazy political year," Schneider said in an interview with the Bradenton Herald. "It (the congressional seat) may not be winnable now, but who can say six months from now? And even if it proves unwinnable, it's worth doing." Because of Trump, Schneider said, a lot of campaigns this year have focused less on policy, which she called the entire driving point of politics. She hopes to remedy that in this congressional campaign and drive discussion on the issues. Some of those issues include addressing the vanishing U.S. middle class by adjusting trade policies, less U.S. involvement in other countries such as the Middle East, and replacing Obamacare with a nonvoucher system such as expanding Medicare to all. "Obamacare is too expensive, unsustainable and unwieldy," Schneider said. "But the Republicans keep trying to repeal it without having anything solid to replace it with. Voucher systems are a bad idea." Schneider said she believes Buchanan has been a good congressman and works hard, but they have philosophical differences. Schneider said she's not sure where Buchanan stands, in some cases, because it's too easy for him to not speak up. She wants to force conversations with Buchanan on issues such as equal pay for women, gay marriage and privatization of Veterans Affairs. Asked about Buchanan's stance on those issues, spokeswoman Sally Dionne said, "We look forward to a healthy debate on the issues once the Democrats select a nominee this summer." Schneider is facing Brent King in that primary, a Lakewood Ranch airline pilot who has not run for public office before. Schneider said she is supporting Hillary Clinton for president, partially because she has loyalty to the Clintons after going to law school with them at Yale University and also because she believes Clinton has the most policy knowledge of any candidate. She said she would enthusiastically support Sanders as well. "She might actually be able to get things done," Schneider said. "And I like Sanders' ideas. My concern is how we pay for them." Despite her support for Clinton, her Ivy League education and her multiple previous runs, Schneider sees herself as an outsider candidate. It has become a commonly sought label this election season. "I don't expect support from the establishment and, in this year, that could be an advantage," Schneider said.

Last week marked the 16th anniversary of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, part of the Banking Act of 1933. Legislation to revive Glass-Steagall is pending in Congress, and the issue is gaining prominence in the 2016 residential campaign. Glass-Steagall was enacted in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929 and failure of nearly 5,000 banks during the Great Depression. It required separation of commercial from investment banking. Commercial or "traditional" banks were primarily "Main Street" oriented, accepting deposits as their primary source of funding and making relatively short-term loans to individuals and businesses. Investment banks earned money through Wall Street activities, including underwriting securities, insuring bonds, providing advice on mergers and acquisitions, and otherwise engaging in capital markets. The business cultures were inherently incompatible, with commercial bankers by nature risk-adverse and their investment counterparts necessarily risk-taking. Glass-Steagall was repealed by the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, known as Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Impetus came from the 1998 merger of Citicorp, under Chairman and CEO John Reed, and Travelers Group, headed by Sanford Weill. Because the merger violated Glass-Steagall, the new Citigroup obtained a temporary waiver from the Federal Reserve. The next year, Glass-Steagall was gone. Gramm-Leach-Bliley was passed by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. By allowing banks, securities firms and insurance companies to consolidate, it inaugurated the age of the "financial services industry" and ultimately of "too big to fail." The 2008 housing bubble and deluge of toxic mortgage-backed securities might have occurred if Glass-Steagall was still extant. The intermingling of multiple financial services functions may well, however, have played a major role in spreading chaos throughout the broader economy. With behemoths too big to fail, we the taxpayers bailed out the banking industry with an initial price tag of $700 billion and trillions more in assistance by the Federal Reserve. Yes, there is the Dodd-Frank act with its much-delayed "Volcker Rule." But Dodd-Frank has been underenforced and significantly gutted. The most radical change was a rider to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill last December, for which JPMorgan Chase Chair and CEO Jamie Dimon lobbied prominently. It repeals the Dodd-Frank prohibition on participating in derivatives swaps using federally insured deposits. Meanwhile, financial power has become increasingly concentrated. In 2000, the five biggest U.S. banks held 25 percent of total industry assets. In 2015, the big five control 45 percent: JPMorgan Chase leads with over 13 percent; Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank follow at around 10 percent each; and US Bank is a distant fifth with less than 3 percent. The remaining 55 percent is divided among 6,500 or so other institutions. Financial might has not equaled right. Last May, five major global banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Citicorp, agreed to guilty pleas and over $5.5 billion in fines, mostly for conspiring to manipulate foreign currency exchange markets between 2007 and 2013. The 21st Century Glass Steagall Act of 2015 (S. 1709) is the current leading reinstatement proposal. The bill was introduced last July by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., with co-sponsors John McCain, R-Ariz., Angus King, I-Maine, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. The House version (H.R. 3054) also enjoys bipartisan support. Among 2016 Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, has pushed for reinstating Glass-Steagall, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley agrees. Frontrunner Hillary Clinton has, however, dismissed the proposal in favor of her claimed "more comprehensive" plan. On the Republican side, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is the only candidate who has expressed support for return to Glass-Steagall. There is some division in the financial community. The Glass-Steagall repeal anniversary was heralded by a mea culpa in a major financial daily by former Citigroup CEO Reed. Mr. Reed now believes there are few if any cost efficiencies in merging bank functions and that mixing incompatible cultures renders the entire finance industry more fragile. The Reed reversal follows a similar turnaround by former CEO Weill three years earlier. In contrast, JPMorgan Chase CEO Dimon maintains that big banks are good for the future of America. Consider me a progressive reactionary on this issue. The current system essentially privatizes gain and socializes risk and loss. Of course, investment banks are essential and should be permitted to engage in high-risk activities. What is unacceptable, however, is for the same institutions to have access to insured deposits and other federal guarantees, holding taxpayers hostage for their mistakes and greed. Too big to fail is too big. Bring back a modernized Glass-Steagall. Jan Schneider is a Sarasota attorney and former candidate for Congress.

In response to Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Longboat Key) on "The day bipartisanship broke out in Washington" (Herald, April 5): Yes, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 is a laudable step forward. Its "doc fix" should help ensure seniors continued access to quality medical services and health care providers fair and reliable compensation for services. Its support for the Children's Health Insurance Program should afford health coverage for countless children (and in some states, parents and pregnant women) in low-income families. Also commendable is the fact that H.R. 2 passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives, by a vote of 392 to 37. But having thus made progress for the old and the young, what about ensuring quality, affordable healthcare for ALL Americans? A few weeks ago, Rep. Buchanan and his Republican colleagues in Congress voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the 56th time -- not to mention previously shutting down the federal government over its funding. Before Obamacare, 47 million Americans had no health insurance; over the five years it has been in effect, the number has dropped by a third. Moreover, the program is now expected to cost the federal government more than 10 percent less than projected by the Congressional Budget Office. Certainly, Obamacare is unwieldy, poorly drafted and in need of reform. Somehow one doubts, however, that our congressman will initiate or join sincere bipartisan efforts to fix what's ailing -- and to protect the health of all Americans. Jan Schneider Sarasota Bradenton