Byron Dorgan is going to go out with a bang, and if he succeeds, the country will be better for it. On Wednesday, he gave a blistering floor speech hitting the weaknesses in the base Wall Street reform bill, particularly on breaking up too big to fail banks and credit default swap regulation.
Dorgan is leading a sort of revolt by Senate progressives, as Brian Beutler reports.
Several progressive and populist senators think the bill's broad approach does not call for the fundamental reforms Wall Street needs. They've been pushing far-reaching amendments that would shrink major financial companies, and further limit high-risk trading and though their efforts likely do not have enough votes to pass, they at the very least want to get a fair hearing. And they're banding together to make sure they get one.
"[Democrats] will insist on having the opportunity to have the key amendments offered and debated and voted on," Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) told me this morning.
Democrats have (with a few exceptions) held together fairly harmoniously throughout the debate over Wall Street reform. But in a rare moment of dissension between Dem senators on the floor this morning, Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd swatted down Dorgan's move to bring up an amendment that would ban a major financial product....
Dorgan, though, says he's been all but blocked out of the process, and that other senators have been given priority. He predicts he'll ultimately prevail.
How? Progressive Democrats could use their leverage. They could make their support for ending debate on the bill contingent on getting votes on their amendments.
Thursday night, Beutler had another discussion with Dorgan, in which the Senator indicated he's ready to do just that: to filibuster the bill if key amendments aren't considered.
On the Senate floor this evening, the North Dakota Democrat told Harry Reid and Chris Dodd he'd try to block financial reform legislation from coming to a vote unless they give one of his amendments a fair hearing. "I just told the leader and the committee chairman that I wouldn't be voting for cloture--I'd be voting against cloture--unless my amendment is considered," a frustrated Dorgan told me and one other reporter on his way out of the chamber....
At a caucus meeting earlier today Dorgan and several other progressive senators--including Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA)--pressed leadership to put their amendments on the floor for a vote.
"There seems to be a difference between those who've had their amendments considered and those who haven't, oddly enough," joked Whitehouse on his way out of the meeting.
Cantwell predicted that she would get a vote on her amendment reinstating a Depression-era law preventing banks from owning other kinds of financial firms. Dorgan was told his amendment banning naked CDSes would get a hearing.
But when the list of coming amendments was unveiled this evening, Dorgan's was missing--and he doesn't know why. "I don't know the answer to that," Dorgan said.
Some progressive amendments have been given votes, and have passed, like the Sanders Fed audit and Franken credit rating agency reform. Kaufman-Brown's too-big-to-fail amendment was given a hasty vote, and failed. But some of the major amendments have yet to make the schedule. Cantwell has also said that she'll block a vote if her Glass-Steagall reinstating amendment isn't offered. Hopefully these two will be joined by other progressive Senators to hold out for key votes. There's some good, progressive momentum on this bill now, and with Republicans apparently mulling a filibuster of the final package, all Dem votes are going to necessary.
We've seen it before--progressive ultimatums that dissipated with a little bit of pressure from leadership. But Dorgan really doesn't have a damned thing to lose at this point, and everything to gain--righting a wrong that he warned against a decade ago, and security his legacy. His progressive colleagues, not to mention his leadership, should be willing to join him.