After the GLBA repealed Sections 20 and 32, commentators also noted the importance of scholarly attacks on the historic justifications for Glass–Steagall as supporting repeal efforts. Throughout the 1990s, scholars continued to produce empirical studies concluding that commercial bank affiliate underwriting before Glass–Steagall had not demonstrated the "conflicts of interest" and other defects claimed by Glass–Steagall proponents. By the late 1990s a "remarkably broad academic consensus" existed that Glass–Steagall had been "thoroughly discredited." Although he rejected this scholarship, Martin Mayer wrote in 1997 that since the late 1980s it had been "clear" that continuing the Glass–Steagall prohibitions was only "permitting a handful of large investment houses and hedge funds to charge monopoly rents for their services without protecting corporate America, investors, or the banks."Hyman Minsky, who disputed the benefits of "universal banking," wrote in 1995 testimony prepared for Congress that "repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act, in itself, would neither benefit nor harm the economy of the United States to any significant extent." In 1974 Mayer had quoted Minsky as stating a 1971 presidential commission (the "Hunt Commission") was repeating the errors of history when it proposed relaxing Glass–Steagall and other legislation from the 1930s. With banking commentators such as Mayer and Minsky no longer opposing Glass–Steagall repeal, consumer and community development advocates became the most prominent critics of repeal and of financial "modernization" in general. Helen Garten argued that bank regulation became dominated by "consumer" issues, which produced "a largely unregulated, sophisticated wholesale market and a highly regulated, retail consumer market." In the 1980s Representative Fernand St. Germain (D-RI), as chairman of the House Banking Committee, sought to tie any Glass–Steagall reform to requirements for free or reduced cost banking services for the elderly and poor. Democratic Representatives and Senators made similar appeals in the 1990s. During Congressional hearings to consider the various Leach bills to repeal Sections 20 and 32, consumer and community development advocates warned against the concentration of "economic power" that would result from permitting "financial conglomerates" and argued that any repeal of Sections 20 and 32 should mandate greater consumer protections, particularly free or low cost consumer services, and greater community reinvestment requirements. By 1995 the ability of banks to sell insurance was more controversial than Glass–Steagall "repeal." Representative Leach tried to avoid conflict with the insurance industry by producing a limited "modernization" bill that repealed Glass–Steagall Sections 20 and 32, but did not change the regulation of bank insurance activities.