U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley will serve as the top Democrat on the Financial Institutions and Consumer Protections Subcommittee in Congress.

And he's bracing for a lot of policy fights.

With Republicans in the majority in both houses of Congress, he's afraid they're going to try to undo a lot of legislation passed in 2010 following the financial crisis.

"We are anticipating there will be an effort to dismantle the Consumer Protection Finance Bureau.  And I will be fighting that as we went from wealth stripping to wealth building practices for working families.  And secondly, we are anticipating they'll try Dodd Frank reforms to regulate risk."
 

Merkley believes they will attmept to undo "funeral plans" under Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform legislation -- that required banks to have swift and orderly shutdown plans if they were to go under.  The legislation was an effort to prevent future taxpayer bailouts.