Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), author of the Democrats’ financial reform bill, told reporters tonight he remains hopeful the Senate will soon have the votes to begin debating financial reform.
“There will be a second vote, clearly,” Dodd said. “[M]y hope is by this time they will have satisfied the leader they stuck with him on this point here but they want to get to a debate.”
For his part, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wasn’t showing his hand on the next round of votes. “We’ll see how it plays out,” McConnell said on whether he can hold his members on the next round. “We’ll see what happens.”
Dodd also commented on the lone defector, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), who voted with the Republicans over the issue of derivative regulation. “There are trillions of dollars in derivatives out there. I was prepared to grandfather existing derivatives that have not been cleared…but I can’t very well turn around and say, by the way, you don’t have to have margin requirements,” Dodd said.
Nelson’s wealthiest constituent, Warren Buffet, owner of Berkshire Hathaway, is a holder of billions of dollars in derivatives, which he would like to be exempted from proposed new regulations requiring firms to post collateral for their derivatives.
Reporting by Brian Beutler
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