Dorgan threatens Wall Street Reform filibusterSome progressive amendments have been given votes, and have passed, like the Sanders Fed audit and Franken credit rating agency reform. Kaufman-Brown's too-big-to-fail amendment was given a hasty vote, and failed. But some of the major amendments have yet to make the schedule. Cantwell has also said that she'll block a vote if her Glass-Steagall reinstating amendment isn't offered. Hopefully these two will be joined by other progressive Senators to hold out for key votes. There's some good, progressive momentum on this bill now, and with
Republicans apparently mulling a filibuster of the final package, all Dem votes are going to necessary.
We've seen it before--progressive ultimatums that dissipated with a little bit of pressure from leadership. But Dorgan really doesn't have a damned thing to lose at this point, and everything to gain--righting a wrong that he
warned against a decade ago, and security his legacy. His progressive colleagues, not to mention his leadership, should be willing to join him.
Some of the key amendments that have passed so far:
- Franken Amendment (co-sponsors Begich, Bingaman, Brown, Casey, Durbin, Grassley, Harkin, Johnson, Kaufman, Klobuchar, Lautenberg, Levin, Merkley, Murray, Nelson, Sanders, Schumer, Shaheen, Whitehouse, Wicker and Wyden): 64-35
- Merkley Amendment (co-sponsors Begich, Boxer, Brown, Dodd, Franken, Kerry, Klobuchar, Levin, Schumer, and Snowe): 63-36
- Durbin Amendment (co-sponsor Cardin, Sanders and Whitehouse): 64-33
Frankly, the Merkley-Levin is one of the most needed amendments:
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Of the three measures relevant to the Volcker Rule, the one by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is looking most likely to pass. It won an endorsement this week from Volcker himself, who said it should be made part of the bill.
"We have had several communications with the Merkley-Levin folks, and Mr. Volcker appreciates the hard work they are doing to preserve the intent of the Volcker Rule," a spokesman for Volcker said. "With the strong support of the Treasury, White House and Senator Dodd as well, Chairman Volcker feels very confident that these provisions will make it through the process intact and become law."
It has also been helped by Levin's recent hearings on fraud allegations at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
"The amendment I'm working on with Sen. Merkley would try to end the conflict of interest that was highlighted in the Goldman Sachs hearing, where firms create financial instruments, sell them to their clients and then bet on their failure," Levin said.
While Levin is still in the process of drafting his amendment in consultation with the White House, it would go beyond the Dodd bill by putting the Volcker Rule into statute by adding a prohibition on proprietary trading to the Bank Holding Company Act and superseding existing authority governing such activities.
linkIn particular, the congressional bills would require systemically risky financial institutions to (1) pay a fee into a resolution fund for failed institutions, (2) hold less leverage and have greater liquidity, (3) restrict their risk-taking activities (the so-called "Volcker rule," made explicit in the Senate version) and (4) be subject to a resolution process if they fail, one that would resemble the FDIC's current, successful approach for taking over failed banks.
If all these requirements sound familiar, they should - because they roughly mirror the successful protections put in place for deposit insurance in the 1930s. It's a model that worked for generations.
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