Senate Fails to Move Forward on Wall St. Reform
Updated at 5:40 p.m. ET
Republicans have succeeded in blocking for the time being a final Senate vote on a massive financial regulation bill.
The two parties are still tussling over how to dispose of unresolved amendments.
The vote was 57 - 42 to cut off debate and move toward final passage. Democrats needed 60 votes to accomplish that. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he will try to cut off debate again tomorrow.
"I want everyone to understand, I don't know a lot about everything but I know how to count votes," Reid said after the vote in a news conference, CBS News Capitol Hill Producer John Nolen reports. "I'm not going to be giving any names and verses, but a Senator broke his word with me."
Two Democrats voted against the motion, Nolen reports: Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-WA, and Russ Feingold, D-WI. Reid switched his vote from Yea to Nay at the end of the vote for procedural reasons. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-PA, did not vote.
"The test for this legislation is a simple one - whether it will prevent another financial crisis," Feingold said in a statement. "As the bill stands, it fails that test. Ending debate on the bill is finishing before the job is done."
Two Republicans voted with the Democrats for the cloture motion: Sens. Susan Collins, R-ME, and Olympia Snowe, R-ME.
Still left for the Senate to address are whether to exclude auto dealers from the oversight of a consumer financial protection bureau. Other amendments still being considered would ban commercial banks from trading in speculative investments and impose state interest rate caps on credit card issuers.
The Senate bill represents the broadest rewrite of the rules governing Wall Street since the 1930s. After its final passage, the bill would then have to be merged with a House version.
The legislation would set up a mechanism to watch out for risks in the financial system, create a method to liquidate large failing firms and write new rules for complex securities blamed for helping precipitate the 2008 economic crisis. It also would create a new consumer protection agency, a key point for President Barack Obama.
Republicans and Democrats voted on a compromise Tuesday to roll back efforts to give states more consumer powers. The vote was a partial victory for federally chartered banks that don't want state regulators meddling in their business.
The proposal would let federal regulators override state laws on a case-by-case basis, compared to the blanket pre-emption they now employ. It also would let state attorneys general enforce regulations written by a federal consumer finance protection bureau.