The passing of Robert Byrd creates one immediate headache for Harry Reid: scheduling the vote on financial reform in the Senate.
Senator Byrd was expected to vote for the bill, which was going to be close. And Republican Senator Scott Brown -- who was elected earlier this year to fill Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts -- announced over the weekend that he may oppose the bill because he doesn't like that it's being paid for by a $19 billion tax on large financial institutions.
So much for the wisdom of negotiating with Scott Brown to give him his big bank carve-out on the Volcker Rule. Grassley, Snowe, and Collins all voted for the bill out of the Senate as well. Grassley is a question mark--he originally voted to filibuster the bill, though he did vote in the end to pass the Senate package. He had made noises about his hinging on whether Lincoln's derivatives language remained strong.
Dem leaders are going to have to get Cantwell and Feingold, who both voted against final passage in the Senate because they didn't think the bill was strong enough. As far as the timing of the vote, which was supposed to have happened this week, they have these options as outlined by Brian Beutler.
- Wait until West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin appoints a replacement, and hope that Grassley doesn't waver, which would perhaps push them past their self-imposed deadline to finish the bill this week.
- Persuade Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), or both to switch their votes from "no" to yes" (they opposed the bill from the left).
- An unlikely choice: reconvene the conference committee to remove the bank fees Brown opposes, also threatening the end-of-the-week.
- An unlikelier choice: Let Republicans vote it down.
That last option probably means the bill dies, though Democrats could demagogue its potential demise to try and force one or two Republicans to break with their party.
The political potency of a financial reform bill shouldn't be discounted. It's how the bill got stronger as it moved through the Senate, and even in a few areas in conference. The reform remains a key issue in polling, and Dems could definitely make political hay out of Republicans trying to kill it.