With the failure to secure cloture on Wall Street reform yesterday, Reid's going to try again this afternoon. But it's unclear whether the concerns that led to the defection of the two Democrats who opposed cloture--Maria Cantwell and Russ Feingold--will be answered.
Arlen Specter wasn't in DC to vote today, Reid can add him to his potential total this afternoon. With his own vote (the vote total in the loss was 57-42, with Reid voting no, as is procedure in losing cloture votes, so he can bring it back up) and Specter, he gets 59. So the question becomes, will he get Scott Brown, whom he apparently had thought he had secured a yes vote from in yesterday's vote.
Following the cloture vote, the Senate defeated another one of the good ones, Whitehouse's amendment that would have allowed states to set credit card interest rate caps on banks. It went down 35-60. But there's more that Cantwell and Feingold would like to see
Other amendments offered by Democrats would ban banks from proprietary trading, cap ATM fees at 50 cents, impose new limits on the payday lending industry, prohibit naked credit default swaps and reinstate Glass-Steagall regulations that prohibit banks from owning investment firms.
"We need to eliminate the risk posed to our economy by 'too big to fail' financial firms and to reinstate the protective firewalls between Main Street banks and Wall Street firms," said Feingold in a statement after the vote. Feingold supported the amendment to reinstate Glass-Steagall, among others.
Ezra talks about why why Reid is pushing the vote now: it's all about time.
Next week, the Senate is scheduled to take up the next war supplemental, which will have funding both for Iraq and Afghanistan and also for various disaster-relief efforts, and it will take up a bill to extend economic supports for the jobless. If the Senate doesn't finish financial regulation this week, it probably can't do those bills next week because the GOP's routine filibusters mean that each vote will require days of floor time. And the plan, as of now, is for the Senate to adjourn come Memorial Day. Of course, the Senate could just choose to work past memorial Day, which would solve the problem of floor time.
As for what happens now, debate on financial regulation will continue. More amendments will be considered, at least if Democrats and Republicans can come to an agreement on whether to consider them. And another cloture vote will have to be called. That might be bad for the Senate schedule, but it's probably good for the bill. This is the rare process in which the amendments are making the legislation substantially better. If the Senate has to work over Memorial Day to accommodate that process, so be it.
Absolutely.
