Interesting
June 29, 2010 | federal legislation, industry | Comments (0)Couple of GOP Senators wavering on support of financial reform conference report. Because this is a Congress Daily subscription service, I’ll just excerpt:
House and Senate Democratic leaders hope to push ahead with votes this week on the conference report overhauling the financial regulatory system, but crucial Republican votes in the Senate appeared to be wavering because of the last-minute addition of a bank tax.
Monday’s death of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has narrowed the Democrats’ margin for error in attempting to get the report through the Senate. The Senate bill passed in May on a 59-39 vote, with Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Scott Brown of Massachusetts voting for final passage.
Byrd did not vote on final passage.
With a current caucus of 58 and no clear timetable for Byrd’s replacement being appointed, Senate Democrats will need to hold all four GOP votes to invoke cloture and pass the bill, due to the continued opposition of Democratic Sens. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Maria Cantwell of Washington.
But since the conference committee completed its report, Snowe, Collins and Brown have all come out against an FDIC assessment on the largest banks and hedge funds to help close a $19 billion hole Democrats said was needed to make the bill budget neutral.
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