Finance Reform Clears the Senate
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In a 59-39 vote finance reform cleared the Senate this evening.
So, what’s next?
The House/Senate must now work out differences through a conference. The expectation is that it won’t be a long one.
On Monday, May 24 you will see two roll call votes in the Senate regarding instructions for the conferees. One is on Sen. Brownback’s auto dealers amendment, and the other is on proprietary trading.
Why these two? Because the Brownback amendment and the Merkley-Levin proprietary trading amendment were both supposed to get votes before final passage in the Senate, BUT did not in the rush to conclude the bill this evening.
One technical point the Senate passed HR 4173 as amended by S3217, which is itself as amended. In other words, the Senate bill passed this evening but officially the Senate is calling it HR 4173 as amended by the Senate bill. Confused yet?
Another way to put this is that the Dodd substitute bill, plus the amendments which passed the Senate, cleared the Senate tonight but the Senate wrote on the top of that legislation “HR 4173 as amended”.
