Democratic leaders might want to wrap up work on Wall Street reform by the end of this week. But their Republican counterparts have other ideas.
“This is a bill that’s clearly going to go into the week after next,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned at his weekly press conference this afternoon.
The floor debate over reform has been fairly uncontentious, but has moved extremely slowly in large part, according to Democrats, because of Republican interference. Majority Leader Harry Reid was not asked to respond to McConnell’s statement when he took the mics. But he has promised an open amendment process on the bill, and that could limit his ability to force an end to debate if Republicans continue to slow walk it. And, of course, the longer the Senate spends hashing out this legislation, the less time it has to work on a climate/energy bill, set to be unveiled tomorrow, and to confirm Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.
