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Ezra Klein has an excellent post challenging the conventional take that invoking cloture on Wall Street reform is an unalterably good thing. In particular, he takes a look at Scott Brown, who was the only member of the Senate to switch his vote on cloture from no to yes today:
Brown’s objection was that he wanted mutual funds, insurers, trusts and a couple other types of financial institutions that have powerful presences in Massachusetts exempted from many of the bill’s provisions, particularly the Volcker rule. His vote today implied that assurances have been made. But the end policy here is not a particularly good one: It creates another place in the system where risks can migrate, and though the systemic regulator could step in if it sees things getting out of control, there’s no assurance that it will step in. Meanwhile, Maria Cantwell was pushing for enforceable language on derivatives, and her concerns still haven’t been met. So getting to the finish line here took the form of freeing financial institutions from regulations rather than making the bill stronger.
A step back for a second. There IS a Volcker rule in the bill; but it leaves a lot to the discretion of the regulators. The Merkley-Levin amendment, which will get a vote later today as one of two post-cloture votes on amendments, codifies the Volcker rule and strengthens it. But what Brown wants is to weaken the Volcker rule as it relates to financial services businesses in Massachusetts. And it looks like he got his wish:
Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) said Thursday that he flipped his vote on the financial regulatory overhaul because of assurances he received from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) [...]
“I supported moving the financial bill forward today because I received assurances from Senator Reid and his leadership team that the issues related to Massachusetts in the financial reform bill will be fixed before it is signed into law,” he said in a statement. “We are still working to ensure these commitments are fulfilled prior to a final vote.”
Amazing. Well, the best way to deal with Brown on this issue is to pass the Merkley-Levin amendment that codifies the language and vacates any Reid-Brown deal, and at this point, with cloture invoked, there would be nothing Brown could do about it. Richard Shelby apparently supports Merkley-Levin, and namesake Paul Volcker has pushed hard on it. There’s a downside to that too, of course; Merkley-Levin only passes if the Brownback amendment exempting auto dealers from the CFPA passes. And with that exemption already in the House bill, it would be locked into any conference report.
Ezra makes another good point: why did the rest of the Senate Democratic caucus abandon Cantwell and Feingold? We now have a derivatives piece with a gaping loophole in it, no breakup of the banks or restrictions on which kind of institution can engage in what kind of trading, and assurances made to Scott Brown to exempt his favorite financial institutions. Why would they sanction that? As Ezra says, “Party discipline isn’t dead, I guess.”
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Talk about an understatement.
Where in the world was Ezra Klein during the repeated 1 a.m. Party-line votes, the filling of the amendment tree (blocking of all amending) by Harry Reid on the final version of the legislation immediately upon introduction, the 60-vote-thresholds for all the preceding, fake floor amending before the backroom-drafted Reid manager’s amendment substitute emerged for rubber-stamping, the Party-line tabling of all amendments, regardless of merit, during reconciliation, at the enthusiastic direction of Max Baucus – etc., etc. – during the health care reform legislation’s journey through the Senate…?? [Cheering blind Party discipline all the way...]
Unfortunately for us all, what is mostly over – following in the footsteps of the U.S. House of Representatives, and perhaps illustrated for some by seeing the results of the rather-heroic efforts Chris Dodd made for most of this financial reform bill’s time on the Senate floor to try to return open amending to the Senate – is the United States Senate as a deliberative, Senator-run legislative body, as a direct result of just such unwarranted and grossly-irresponsible “Party discipline,” with its attendant corrupt backroom deals – which Maria Cantwell and Russ Feingold are finally laudably refusing to shut up and salute, unlike their Democratic Yes-men colleagues.
Under Barry’s desk?
Soon we will be treated to the same sort of chant we heard during the health insurance reorg. The glories of how the Ds stood up on the hard issues and fought for what is right. Right in both cases being to make sure that no corporate lobbyist rock is left unturned. Surprising that Klein seems to find this result a bit less appetizing than the previous series of sellouts to corporate profits. The Ds needed another Gruber out early to explain how actually fixing the problems with TBTF and unregulated derivates would unfairly bend the cost curve for the masters of the economies who just want to keep us all safe from economic harm. Oh, wait that was probably assigned to Rahm and Obama.
Anyone catch the complex Unanimous Consent Agreement that Harry Reid produced about half an hour ago? [After working 'long and hard' on it with Mitch McConnell, Dodd, Shelby and other Senators, according to Reid.]
It was too complex to quickly absorb all of it, especially the way Reid spits these things out. But I did grasp this much:
All post-cloture time is yielded back, except for five minutes, and all pending amendments are withdrawn [that 30 hours of post-cloture time could otherwise have delayed the final vote on this legislation until next week, with the objection of one Senator], provided first that:
Jeff Sessions makes a budget point of order under the Congressional Budget Act against the Dodd/Lincoln substitute amendment, and Dodd successfully moves to waive that budget point of order, which requires 60 votes to succeed. [The budget point of order is because the bill, as written and amended, is $10-$20 billion over the Budget Resolution funding authority that the Banking Committee has to spend, and would therefore raise the deficit accordingly.]
The vote on waiving the budget point of order is underway.
So far, Russ Feingold has held his ground against the corrupt Democratic Party/White House leadership and voted No, while Maria Cantwell has caved and voted Aye, along with Brown of Massachusetts, and Olympia Snowe. [Cantwell joins the Aye votes of gutless, caving Yes-men like Ben Cardin, Ron Wyden, Carl Levin, Jeff Merkley, and other Democrats pretending just prior to the UCAgreement to be outraged that their "vital" bipartisan amendments won't even be getting a vote before this legislation leaves the Senate.]
If this motion receives 60 votes and passes (which it just did, 60-39), under the Unanimous Consent Agreement (which just one Senator could have blocked) the bill will then proceed to a final passage vote, as is, apparently with no managers’ amendment of any kind added to it – although Reid may have muttered something about adoption of an unidentified amendment or two at the desk.
Which, I believe, means that Levin-Merkley, among other crucial amendments (and the 50 or so amendments that the managers’ amendment was going to have in it) is gone. Because, rather than withdrawing the underlying Republican amendment to which Levin-Merkley was proposed as a second-degree amendment, as Levin and Merkley said they’d heard was possible (at Wall Street insistence, to avoid a vote on Levin-Merkley), apparently the Republicans are settling for a non-binding opportunity to pass an instruction to Senate conferees, next Monday, about their (car-loan-exempting) amendment, in lieu of a vote on it.
At 8:30 p.m., a final passage vote on H.R. 4173, now replaced with the Senate legislation, as amended, is underway, so that the “Senate” can flee Washington for another four-day weekend ASAP:
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN2_wm.aspx
Maria Cantwell and Russ Feingold both voted No on final passage. Cantwell pulled the classic filibuster/final passage vote dodge – her budget point of order-waiving 60th vote made final passage possible, although she voted No in the end, when only a simple majority was necessary.
On edit, at about 5:50/8:50 p.m.: After Maria Cantwell’s switch, the final vote on passage was 59-39. The bill now heads to conference with the House.
Can we call it the “Clam
ChowderChowdah Kickback”?I’m writing this up now, but thanks for this. I picked the wrong moment to leave my post and have a life… :)
This is ALL on Barry. He favored nearly all the moves “freeing institutions from regulations.” Klein covered Barry’s ass on HCR; he’s covering it again on FinReg. He doesn’t even need “the President is really powerless” argument anymore.
Here’s my post (aided by your excellent rundown): http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/05/20/finreg-passes-the-senate-after-banksters-stare-down-auto-dealers/
Sure thing. [Surprising sudden moves are the way Harry Reid likes to operate, when he gets the power bit between his teeth. Realistically, it's impossible to keep up, from the outside looking in.]
Adding the final icing on the cake of this sickening spectacle, as “Senators” backslapped their way out the door:
Before the Senate adjourned for the weekend at about 9:15 p.m. Thursday [until 2 p.m. Monday, when two non-binding conferee instruction votes are scheduled for about 5 p.m. - one from Brownback, and the other from Hutchison, I believe; no Democratic instructions apparently involved], unanimous consent was requested and received to proceed to the “emergency” war supplemental bill on Monday. No 60-vote requirement was invoked before the Senate could proceed to floor action on that ‘minor’ unfunded liability, with the grave implications it represents for a continued deployment of our military and private for-profit contractors in hostile, violent occupations of two shattered, undefended foreign nations – from “deficit hawk” Tom Coburn, or anybody else…
[I'll repost this comment in your new, topical thread as well.]
David is upstairs with a post on passage, fyi.