Wall Street Regulation Bill Reaches Senate Floor

The Republicans have finally stopped their opposition to allowing the Senate bill re-regulating Wall Street financial firms to come to the Senate floor for debate. The Democrats had forced three votes in the last few days to get the bill to the floor, but Republicans had blocked every single attempt. It looked like they were trying to repeat their actions against the health care reform bill -- delay while spreading lies about the bill.

But Majority Leader Reid was having none of it this time. Having recently found his spine, Reid decided if the Republicans were going to filibuster to keep the bill from the Senate floor, then it was going to have to be a real filibuster (instead of just a parliamentary move). Reid said he would keep the Senate in session and ordered the Sergeant-At-Arms to bring in cots for an overnight session.

Reid said he would keep asking for quorum calls, which require members to come to the Senate floor. He also said he would keep making motions to bring the regulation bill to the floor by unanimous consent. Each time this was done, a Republican would have to be present to object and a vote would be held on the motion. Reid promised to do this for as long as necessary to get the bill up for consideration.

And of course, each time the Republicans voted to keep the bill from coming up for debate, there would be more headlines like those above -- headlines that point out that it is the Republicans blocking the much-needed regulation of Wall Street. With a clear majority of the American people in favor of new regulations to prevent another economic meltdown, this would just hand the Democrats a great issue for the upcoming election.

Finally, the Republicans folded and allowed the bill to come up for debate by unanimous consent -- a vote was not even needed. This makes it much more likely that a re-regulation bill will probably be passed, and it is unlikely that Republicans have the votes to weaken the bill with amendments. They could still filibuster to keep the bill from a final approval vote, but it would just result in more bad publicity and headlines -- and that is unlikely in this election year (because the longer they delay, the closer they get to the election, and the better the issue will be for Democrats).

I don't know how he finally discovered his spine, but I like this new Harry Reid who is not afraid to fight for his party and the American people. I have said in the past that Reid needed to be replaced as Majority Leader, but if he will maintain this new tough attitude, I may have to change my mind on that.

(The above headline pictures are from the blog of Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo.)