All week, Senate Republicans have been blocking a floor debate on the Democrats’ financial regulatory reform legislation, holding out, they say, for a comprehensive bipartisan agreement between Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, and his counterpart Richard Shelby. Now that both sides acknowledge that a grand deal is not in the offing, Republicans are inching toward breaking their filibuster. This morning on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, sounding resigned to the fact that the Democrats outlasted him, dropped all talk of allowing negotiations to continue, and turned his attention to measures in the Democrats’ bill he wants to see fixed.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=127267