The clerk has begun to call the roll on Bernie Sanders’ amendment calling for a one-time audit of the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending activities during the recent financial crisis. Given the trans-ideological group of Senators who expressed support during today’s debate – including not only the expected trans-partisan alliance of Sanders and DeMint and Vitter [...]

Ron Paul has backed off his intense initial criticism of the Sanders compromise on the audit the Fed amendment, saying that he supports passage of a measure that ensures “their sins of the past would be revealed and Americans would know more about who got bailed out by the Fed and under what terms.” He [...]

I am inclined to 100% agree with Dean Baker’s assessment of the audit the Fed compromise hammered out yesterday. To cope with the economic crisis, the Fed created 13 different special lending facilities. At their peak last year, these facilities had lent out more than $2 trillion. The Fed has only disclosed aggregate data about [...]

The “audit the Fed” amendment just got a major boost toward passage, with some modifications that secured the support of Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd. It’s unclear what those modifications are. But Bernie Sanders, the author of the amendment, agreed to the modifications, and subsequent speakers on the amendment haven’t wavered in their support, either. [...]

Just now, the Senate voted down a substitute to the consumer protection part of the Wall Street reform bill, which would have basically gutted that part of the bill, by a count of 38-61 (so at least a couple Republicans balked). UPDATE: Grassley and Snowe voted against the amendment. Chris Dodd just announced that the [...]

A pretty positive development for both the Sanders amendment to audit the Fed and the Brown-Kaufman amendment to cap the size and leverage of the mega-banks: Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader facing a tough re-election contest, will support both of them, and contrary to some rumblings he guaranteed a vote for Brown-Kaufman on the [...]

In a fiery speech on the Senate floor, Russ Feingold conditioned his support for the Wall Street reform measure on adding a multitude of amendments that would break up the mega-banks, cap size and leverage and restore the firewall between commercial and investment banks. He even went so far as to say that he would [...]

The New York Times takes a look at the “liberal amendments” to the Wall Street reform bill, which are actually just common-sense amendments to deal with the problem of an overheated financial sector, but which put those who just want to nibble around the edges and no put meaningful constraints on the big banks in [...]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expressed frustration last night that there had been, at that time, no unanimous consent agreements on any amendment to Wall Street reform. “We had amendments that their Senators offered yesterday that we were willing to accept, but they refused to let us do that,” he said on the Senate floor. [...]

I don’t really see how the White House will stop the audit the Fed amendment from passing if even Senators who voted against a similar amendment last year are flipping to support. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) will co-sponsor an amendment that would require government auditors to open up the books at the Federal Reserve. Shaheen [...]

The Federal Reserve is, not surprisingly, lobbying hard to get the “audit the Fed” amendment to the Wall Street reform bill voted down in the Senate, using the same process that ultimately failed in the House. Ryan Grim reports that the Fed wants to play the weakening, toothless Fed audit that exists inside the Dodd [...]