WASHINGTON – Sen. Maria Cantwell wants to use state gambling laws to regulate parts of Wall Street, saying someone needs to police financial markets where ‘casino capitalism’ involving highly speculative trades she likens to sophisticated betting continue unabated and threaten to create yet another financial crisis. ‘She’s going for their jugular,’ Michael Greenberger, a University of Maryland law professor, said of the effort by Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat. Greenberger was a top official at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Clinton administration who unsuccessfully fought to regulate such trading. Cantwell wants to repeal parts of a 2000 law that barred states from using their gambling laws to help rein in the nearly $600 trillion derivatives market. The senator’s effort comes as Congress is starting to consider tightening federal regulation of financial markets in the wake of the current economic downturn. Cantwell said she’s not convinced Congress will take strong enough action and, as a backup, wants to give state attorneys general the power to act. ‘They are the last line of defense,’ Cantwell said. ‘I don’t want them neutered.’ Derivatives essentially began as a form of insurance, offering a hedge for such companies […]