We’ve reached a fork in the road. Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) will be working through the weekend to reach a deal on financial regulatory reform. Dodd, ever hopeful, says a breakthrough is quite possible. Shelby? Not so much.
If Dodd’s suspicions bear out, the political endgame is pretty clear: The two will announce an agreement, Dodd’s reform bill will be brought to the Senate floor Monday with overwhelming support, and for the next several days, or even a couple weeks, members will debate it, vote on amendments, and, ultimately, pass a final bill.
But if Shelby’s right, the politics could get very sticky. On Monday at 5 p.m., the Senate will vote on the question of whether the Senate should debate Dodd’s bill. It was a hardball move by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But leading Republicans predict that if an agreement isn’t reached they’ll stick together–all 41 of them–to block the bill from coming to the floor, essentially voting not to address the question of regulating Wall Street. Even though many Republicans don’t want to go out on a limb.
“I think if we push a vote and we haven’t reached total agreement there will be a vote Monday and I believe the Republicans will stay together,” Shelby told reporters after a meeting with Dodd last night.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), whose vote is very much in play, had a similar prediction: “there’ll either be an agreement reached between the two of them and a 100-vote motion to proceed. Or there won’t be and it won’t get the votes. It’ll be one of those two things.”
That could come back to haunt them in the days and weeks ahead. But will there be hard feelings afterwards? Will negotiations fall apart if Reid doesn’t cancel the vote. Corker and Shelby agreed that it won’t. And that, as much as anything, is an indication of where things will go from there.
Democrats will scream from the rooftops about Republicans are protecting big banks. They may even force mulligans on the vote, putting Republicans on the record repeatedly. But in the background, they’ll continue pursuing a deal, and when one is reached, they’ll go to the floor and pass a bill.
Ultimately, though, Republicans don’t want to take that vote, so the pressure is on Shelby to accept…something. Both parties are being very tight lipped about what substantive changes to the bill are on the table. But they’ll also appear together on Meet the Press this weekend…so we’ll probably know by then how this will all play out.
