With the passing of Sen. Robert Byrd and flip-flopping from Sen. Scott Brown -- who obtained a loophole for banks with hedge funds but opposes a last-minute tax on financial institutions -- the financial-reform bill looks to be missing two key votes in the upper chamber. When the bill originally passed the Senate, it did so with no votes to spare -- and two Democrats, Maria Cantwell and Russ Feingold, voted no because they felt the bill was not strong enough.
Now, things get tighter, and it looks like the Senate will not meet the July 4 deadline for passing the bill. Congressional staff are still sorting through the issues, but barring pressure on Brown from home-state constituents, or a sudden willingness on the part of the GOP not to filibuster the conference report, this bill will require Cantwell's and Feingold's support to get it over the top; it will require at least one of the two to switch their cloture vote and help kill the inevitable filibuster.
How does this happen? Both have made their problems with the bill clear, but now that the conference report has been finalized, it's tricky: Apparently, the only way [PDF] to go back to the conference and change the bill would be if the House, the first chamber to consider the report, passes a motion to recommit the bill to the conference committee. If the House passes the conference report, however, it can't be amended unless the Senate asks to start a new conference. If changes are necessary to final passage, we could find ourselves in a byzantine, health-care-style vote-o-rama with the report being passed and then the law amended by both Houses. It's not clear that anyone has the stomach for that.
Cantwell and Feingold are both keeping quiet and reviewing the final text of the bill, which was released yesterday. They're hoping they'll find a way to gain some improvements on the bill in exchange for their now-critical votes, and they won't undercut their negotiating position until the last second. That said, for all their legitimate complaints about this bill, it's hard to imagine them joining the Republican filibuster to kill the bill, which is at the very least better than the status quo and the last bite at the financial-reform apple we'll get this year. It's going to be close.
Update: Americans for Financial Reform is planning to leverage its Massachusetts' field-organizing program to pressure Brown to vote for financial reform. The bill itself has overwhelming support in the state, so it'll be interesting to watch Brown position himself on the issue.
-- Tim Fernholz
