Wall Street Reform state of play, June 29th

by: Chris Bowers

Tue Jun 29, 2010 at 10:20


Difficult times ahead for Wall Street reform. At this point it is mianly about vote counting, in an attempt to reach 60 Senate votes for cloture (but not necessarily for the final vote). Here are where things stand.

  • Feingold: Feingold is definitely a "no," likely on both cloture and on the final vote.  I agree with David Dayen that Feingold was never going to vote for this bill.  He never really engaged the legislative process on this one, and only threw out a lengthy, laundry list of concerns toward the very end of the process. At that late point, there was no way to meet all of them.  And no, I don't get voting for the status quo, especially when Feingold rightly voted against it in 1999, and when he says there are some good things in the bill.

  • Cantwell: Still no word on Cantwell, although her concerns were apparently addressed in the conference committee..

  • Byrd replacement: Don't expect a replacement for Robert Byrd until after his funeral, which is scheduled for Friday.  Since Congress is off next week, there will be no replacement for Byrd until Congress returns in two weeks.  This could delay the vote until that time, as well.

  • Collins and Brown Additionally, Susan Collins has joined Scott Brown in raising concerns over a new bank tax, which would cost banks $19 billion over five years. These two want "reform," but also want to protect big banks at all costs. This reminds me of Snowe's objection to the public option, that public health insurance would be too inexpensive.

  • Snowe Olymnpia Snowe sounds a bit more positive than Collins or Brown, but she is very good at playing Lucy with the football, so don't count on her until she actually votes yes.

  • Grassley, Bayh and Luga: Additional swing votes are Charles Grassley (who voted against cloture, but voted for the final bill, back in May), Evan Bayh (who also seems to be wavering), and Richard Luga (more of a longshot).
All told, for the bill to reach cloture, four of these nine votes are required. If Democrats believe they have the votes-or are going to attempt to call this handful of Republicans on a bluff--expect them to move forward and schedule a vote in the House later today.  If they don't think they have the votes, expect the bill to be opened up again to further appease the New England Republicans.

All told, this is the worst Lucy and the football moment in Congress since, like, last week, when the same three New England Republicans negotiated in bad faith and killed the jobs bill.

Chris Bowers :: Wall Street Reform state of play, June 29th

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Wall Street Reform state of play, June 29th | 9 comments
You're wrong about Feingold (0.00 / 0)
He laid out his position in clear terms. He would have voted for the bill if it did something about Too Big to Fail. That -- opposition to TBTF -- was the alleged position of most Democrats and Obama prior to the debate.

But Obama worked to defeat the only real effort to break up the banks, Brown-Kaufmann, ensuring that Feingold wouldn't vote for the bill.

Geithner's team spent much of its time during the debate over the Senate bill helping Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd kill off or modify amendments being offered by more-progressive Democrats. A good example was Bernie Sanders's measure to audit the Fed, which the administration played a key role in getting the senator from Vermont to tone down. Another was the Brown-Kaufman Amendment, which became a cause célèbre among lefty reformers such as former IMF economist Simon Johnson. "If enacted, Brown-Kaufman would have broken up the six biggest banks in America," says the senior Treasury official. 'If we'd been for it, it probably would have happened. But we weren't, so it didn't'."

http://baselinescenario.com/20...

Instead, Obama sought the votes of conservative Democrats and Republicans.

You can argue that Obama made the wise legislative choice, if passing a bill, any bill -- as opposed to preventing another crisis -- was the number one priority.

You can't argue that Feingold would never have voted for this bill.  

So then why was he absent during conference committee negotiations? (4.00 / 2)
Maria Cantwell got herself involved in the conference committee and had many of her concerns addressed. Bernie Sanders did a similar thing with HCR, scoring money for community health centers. Feingold just disappeared. Didn't even attempt to make the bill better.

And now that the chance to do so is over, why is he filibustering? Why is he holding up the bill from coming to a vote? Why is he forgiven for joining a Republican filibuster, but we're ready to tear Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman apart for doing the sam? If Feingold wants to vote no, let him vote no, but by filibustering, he's only making it weaker because we either have to drop the bill or try to get votes from more Republicans.

In the meantime, Feingold has been playing the right a lot lately...helping to kill the jobs bill over deficits. He's scared, he's going down in November and he knows it.  

[ Parent ]
Because ending TBTF wasn't on the table (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
That's bullshit (4.00 / 1)
Sherrod Brown and Ted Kaufmann offered an amendment, it went down in flames. It's unbelievable to think that the White House, who has shown to have almost no effect on the votes of Senators, could have flipped 27 votes in favor of the legislation if they supported it, considering at least one of those 27 would have had to have been a Republican.

Feingold could have pushed for it, he didn't. He was quiet through that whole event.  

[ Parent ]
And why is he filibustering? (0.00 / 0)
Because the bill wouldn't end TBTF or prevent another crisis (which is perhaps redundant.)

He declared early on that he would filibuster the bill if it didn't deliver what he regarded as real reform.

I know we're all used to Dems talking big, then caving (see: public option pledge). Here is one doing exactly what he said he would do.

[ Parent ]
"since, like, last week"? They sure thought it's hi time for the next stunt! (0.00 / 0)
Really, will we see the Dems at the start of the next Congress reacting on this horrible obstructionism, and the obvious bad faith in "compromise" negotiations? Will they finally find the spine to kill the filibuster? Or will they just pretend they can't pass anything liberal with "only" 53 votes and then happily vote on rethuglican policies?
Grrr.
There aren't even 50 Democrats (0.00 / 0)
who favor killing the filibuster and there certainly won't be next year.  
[ Parent ]
With such a defeatist attitude, there will never be enough Dems! (4.00 / 1)
Really, DTO, can't you say something positive, inspiring on this topic, for a change?
[ Parent ]
Why bother? (0.00 / 0)
If I say something positive, I'm going to be accused of being a apologist.

I'd happily say we have a bill that does a remarkable job of restarting a workable regulation system that has been decimated for over 50 years. A bill that gives us strong consumer protection that even Elizabeth Warren supports. A bill that makes banks and hedge funds pay for their mistakes.

Earlier this year, Chris started a movement to gain pledges to kill the filibuster from Senators and Senators-to-be It has stopped. I wonder why. It's too bad that the good Senator from Wisconsin also thinks the 60 vote threshold is just fine in the Senate and feels we don't need to kill the filibuster, since killing it might have made his wishes come true. It doesn't matter, next year, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) will continue the madness.  

[ Parent ]
Wall Street Reform state of play, June 29th | 9 comments




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