Senator Dodd’s Updated Regulatory Reform Bill Leaves Committee with Numerous Democratic Amendments; Republicans Withdraw and Reserve Amendments for Further Debate on the Senate Floor
On March 15, 2010, Senator Chr is Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking,Housing and UrbanAffairs (the “Committee”), introduced a 1,336 page bill entitled “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010” (the “Bill”).This represented Senator Dodd’s second attempt at financial regulatory reform. On November 16, 2009, Senator Dodd introduced a 1,136 page bill entitled “RestoringAmerican Financial StabilityAct of 2009,” that received little support from either party.1 Attention was instead focused on the House deliberations on comprehensive financial regulatory reform.The House of Representatives passed H.R. 4173, the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer ProtectionAct,”on December 11, 2009 by a 223 to 202 vote,with no Republicans in favor of H.R. 4173 and 27 Democrats voting against the bill.2 When the Bill was released it was expected that numerous amendments would be made at the Committee level.3
Members of the Committee submitted 473 amendments to the Bill by the March 19, 2010 deadline. Senator Dodd scheduled a markup session of the Bill beginning at 5:00 p.m.,Monday,March 22. It was expected that the Committee would address the Bill and the submitted amendments during the week of March 19th. However, following short speeches by Senator Dodd and Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), the ranking Republican member of the Committee, it was announced that all Republican amendments had been withdrawn and reserved for the full Senate deliberations. Many of the amendments submitted by Democratic Committee member s were incorporated in Senator Dodd’s Managers Amendment.4 The Committee then approved the Bill, as amended by the Manager’s Amendment by a party-line vote of 13 to 10, adjourning after only 21 minutes.
Having left the Committee, further changes to the Bill are expected on the floor of the Senate. The next steps for the Republicans are unclear, as the withdrawn amendments include 110 from Senator Shelby and 97 from Senator Bob Corker (RTN). However, there are signs that both Democrats and Republicans feel pressure to pass financial regulatory reform legislation. Senator Dodd stated,“There are Republicans I serve with in the Senate who frankly don’t want to just say ‘no policy’when it comes to major legislative initiatives and they would like to be part of this debate and offer constructive ideas to this proposal.” Senator JohnThune (R-SD), the 4th ranking Republican in the Senate, said,“A lot of our people do want to vote for something.”
Further progress on the Bill is not expected until Congress returns after the Easter and Passover recess in two weeks. After the House vote on healthcare on Sunday,March 21st, it is expected that Congress and theWhite House will next focus on passing a bill on financial regulatory reform. Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), the Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee recently stated “When we come back from recess, the number one issue for the US Congress will be this bill in the United States Senate.” We will closely monitor the legislative process and will continue to publish updates at critical stages.