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United States News Title: U.S. Regulatory Bill Nears Passage With Republican Support (Scott Brown - AYE!) The U.S. Senate plans to pass the financial-regulation bill on July 15 as Democrats secured the 60 votes needed to enact the biggest rewrite of Wall Street rules since the Great Depression. Majority Leader Harry Reid will file a procedural motion today that will permit the Senate to move forward, Jim Manley, a spokesman for the Nevada Democrat, said today in an e-mail. “We will finish our work on this bill this week to ensure that these critical protections and accountability for Wall Street are in place as soon as possible,” Reid said in a statement yesterday. The decision to seek a vote comes after Republicans Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, said they would back the bill. Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, announced today he would vote yes after telling reporters yesterday he was undecided. Their support gives Democrats the 60 votes needed to end debate in the chamber and move to a final vote, which will require a simple majority to send the measure to President Barack Obama’s desk. The House of Representatives approved the legislation on June 30, five days after lawmakers worked through a 20-hour marathon session to merge versions approved separately by the House and Senate. Obama praised the three Republicans for supporting the bill and said the legislation would help prevent another financial crisis. “I urge the Senate to act quickly so I can sign it into law next week,” he said. Consumer Bureau The bill creates a consumer bureau at the Federal Reserve, a council of regulators to monitor firms for systemic risk to the economy and a mechanism for liquidating large financial firms whose collapse would threaten the economy. Reid, whose party controls 59 of the Senate’s 100 seats, must avoid further defections by Democrats to retain the 60-vote supermajority needed to thwart Republican opposition. Senator Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who opposed the Senate bill in May, said last month that he will again vote against it. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat who opposed the measure in May, said she plans to back the final bill. “Wall Street reform is a step away from heading to the President’s desk to be signed into law,” Senator Christopher Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who led negotiations on the bill, said in a statement yesterday. The support announced by the three Republicans “demonstrated how bipartisanship is supposed to work.” Not Perfect Brown praised the legislation for setting up and defining some types of trading, improving transparency and ending the government practice of propping up large financial firms. “While it’s certainly not a perfect bill, I think it goes a good measure to make sure we don’t have the same type of problems that we had before,” he told reporters. Snowe said in a statement that the bill “takes necessary steps to implement meaningful regulatory reforms, create strong consumer protections, and restore confidence in the American financial system.” Another Republican vote could come from Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa. His spokeswoman, Jill Kozeny, said in an e- mail last week that the lawmaker is “very concerned” about the mechanism Democrats created to pay for the bill after removing a bank fee. The revised plan calls for ending the $700 billion bailout program early and increasing banking-industry deposit- insurance fees. Byrd’s Death Republican support became more crucial for Democrats when West Virginia’s Robert Byrd died last month at age 92 after serving more than 50 years in the Senate. West Virginia’s legislature is scheduled to meet July 15 to clarify the process for replacing the Democratic lawmaker, Sara Payne, a spokeswoman for Governor Joe Manchin, said yesterday in an e- mail. There has been some confusion about whether the governor can call a special election in November for someone to serve the final two years of Byrd’s term or whether the successor Manchin names would complete it. Manchin will appoint an interim successor at least until November after the legislature clarifies state laws. Democrats had expected to swear in Byrd’s replacement by the end of the week.
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#1. To: go65 (#0)
Never cared for Scott Brown. He's a liberal.
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