The People’s Business
by digby
Ryam Grim has the best recap I’ve seen so far of the events on the Senate floor last night during the financial reform debate. While we were all riveted to the election, the Republicans showed their true colors. When they aren’t filibustering unemployment insurance they are blocking efforts to help average consumers in their dealings with banks:
Tom Harkin was stifled in his effort Tuesday evening to bring a measure to the Senate floor that would cap ATM fees at 50 cents. Harkin first introduced his amendment on May 4 and has yet to get a vote. With the close of debate on Wall Street reform rapidly approaching, Harkin went straight to the floor to ask the chamber’s consent to vote, conceding that he would be satisfied with a mere five minutes of debate. Banks, both small and large, oppose the amendment and argue that capping fees will reduce the number of privately available ATMs at convenience stores and elsewhere as well as the number of bank-owned cash machines. Harkin says that an average ATM transaction costs 37 cents. Harkin’s amendment is just one of several consumer friendly measures that has support but is being cut off by Republican objections and the coming end of the floor debate. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to cut off good consumer amendments because of cloture,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). Cantwell, along with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is sponsoring an amendment that would reinstate Glass-Steagall, which forces banks to split off investment banking and commercial banking. Cantwell said that the managers of the bill on the floor are telling her that her amendment is not germane and so can’t be considered after cloture.
But that’s not all. They’re doing Wall Street’s bidding as well:
Senate Republicans blocked Democrats from voting on three amendments Tuesday that are strongly opposed by Wall Street. The combination of the GOP obstruction and Democratic leadership urgency to finish the bill threatens to cut off key consumer protection amendments. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top-ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, rose to object to a vote on one of the most talked-about amendments, cosponsored by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). Levin-Merkley would ban commercial banks from trading for their own benefit with taxpayer-backed money. Shelby also objected to an amendment from Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) that would rein in predatory practices of payday lenders and one from Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would have banned naked credit default swaps, which were at the heart of the financial crisis. Dorgan’s amendment was expected to fail, but Levin-Merkley had been surging in recent days. Merkley took the Senate floor after Harkin and once again called his amendment up for a vote, but Shelby objected again on behalf of coleagues. Merkley demanded to know who was objecting. “Myself, and a lot of others around here,” he said, waving his hand at the GOP side of the aisle. Merkley asked him to name names. Shelby replied that he was objecting on behalf of himself. (Only one Senator is needed to object.) Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has an amendment that would allow states to cap interest rates on credit cards. He said Tuesday that he was working with Dodd to get a vote and that it has a chance to be ruled germane. But the only amendment that is certain to be ruled germane, said a Democratic leadership aide, is one that makes it weaker. From Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), the measure would exempt auto dealers from the purview of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that the bill would create. The only way for an amendment to come to the floor without unanimous consent, which Republicans can object to, is to file cloture to defeat a filibuster. That requires 60 votes but, more importantly, takes several days of floor time.
And the Senate has a war it needs to fund.
Make that, the Democrats have a war they need to fund. They are, after all, in charge, and they make the schedule.
It was quite an evening. And there’s more of this unfolding as I write.
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