Senator Byrd's Death May Stall Passage Of Wall Street Bill

Senator Robert Byrd's Death Leaves Wall Street Bill In Doubt


Sen. Robert Byrd’s death Monday cast serious doubt on whether Senate Democrats can pass the Wall Street reform bill this week.

The combination of Byrd’s passing and early negative reactions to the conference report by at least one key Republican, Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, signals Democrats face the real possibility of falling several votes shy as they try to finish the bill.

"It is a tougher road, believe me," Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Monday. "A 58-vote majority is not as good as a 59-vote majority."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) spent Monday trying to line up votes, and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) was planning to sit down Monday evening with one of the Republican holdouts, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

But at least one Democrat, Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who previously opposed the bill has told Reid that he was still not supportive. Reid asked him to help Democrats at least break a Republican filibuster, but that was “not really” something he would consider, Feingold said.

"They'd like me to vote for cloture," Feingold told POLITICO, adding that he hears from leadership "all the time."

"I'm not going to enable something that doesn't do the job to be passed so that people can pretend it does the job," he continued. "It does not do the job. The American people deserve a bill that prevents the kind of collapse that occurred a couple years ago and I don't think this bill does it."

Reid could attempt to bring up the bill this week and force Republicans to vote against it, or he could wait until West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, appoints a replacement for Byrd’s seat, which may not come until after the July 4 recess, according a senior Senate Democratic aide.

"It's hard to see how we do it this week, unless one of our members is willing to change his mind or if Scott Brown stops his retreat," the aide said. "But overall, people remain confident it will pass sooner rather than later."

The House could vote as early as Tuesday, but action could get pushed to Wednesday, said a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Even before Byrd’s death Monday, the prospects for the financial regulatory overhaul appeared cloudy in the Senate.

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Two Democrats, Feingold and Maria Cantwell of Washington, opposed the bill last month, and they have no given no indication to Democratic leaders that they will switch their votes. Without their backing, Democrats would need to hold the support of at least three of the four Republicans who have voted for the bill — Brown, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Susan Collins of Maine and Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Without Byrd, Democrats would need all four Republicans.

But the late addition of a 10-year, $19 billion tax on banks came as a surprise to Republicans, who have typically used new taxes as reason enough not to support a bill. Democrats added the tax to ensure the bill was deficit-neutral and satisfied pay-go rules in the House.

A conference report cannot be amended, so Democrats will be unable to promise any changes in order to mollify Brown or win other votes.

“There is much to like in the bill, but I do not like the new $19 billon tax that was slipped in at the wee hours of the morning,” Collins told reporters Monday. “I'm looking at how that works and what my options are.

There is much in the bill that I think will strengthen oversight of financial institutions. I'm very pleased my capital standards amendment was included and that auto dealers and other small businesses were not swept up in the bill. So I have to weigh all those factors."

Snowe said Monday that she needed to study the bill before making a decision.

"It's regrettable that in the course of business, in this case in the House-Senate conference, that different initiatives emerged that clearly should not have," Snowe said, adding that Dodd had given her no advance warning about the provision.

But Snowe suggested the bank tax might not be a deal-breaker for her vote. When asked whether the tax was "more palatable" because it calls for a fee against banks with more than $50 billion in assets, and hedge funds and hedge funds with more than $10 million, Snowe said "absolutely."

"I think that is certainly preferable that it's on the larger banks where the legislation is appropriately designed and for including private equity and hedge funds. Absolutely," Snowe said. "I mean, if you have to draw the line some place, that's where to draw it.”

Durbin said Democrats, including Dodd, were surprised to see Brown's statement Friday. Brown said he was "surprised and extremely disappointed" with a $19 billion bank tax added to the conference report and signaled he might switch his vote from yes to no.

"Senator Dodd went the extra mile to try to address his concerns in the bill, so I hope he reconsiders," Durbin said.

Brown was one of the driving forces behind a change in the bill to temper the Volcker Rule, winning an amendment that allows banks to make modest investments in hedge funds and private-equity funds with their own money. Massachusetts banks including State Street would be helped by the change, as would others nationwide.

Dodd defended the $19 billion bank tax when it was first debated by the conference committee about 3 a.m. Friday. He said the amount of the tax could effectively be paid for if Wall Street executives were willing to forgo their bonuses.

Those executive’s firms “are alive because the American taxpayer wrote a check,” Dodd said early Friday morning, referring to the $700 billion bank bailout plan. “To ask them to forego their bonuses ... ought not to be a lot to ask.”

Brown, at least, didn’t sound persuaded.

“While I'm still reviewing the bill's details, these provisions were not in the Senate version of the bill which I previously supported,” Brown said. “My fear is that these costs would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher bank, ATM and credit card fees and put a strain on lending at the worst possible time for our economy. I’ve said repeatedly that I cannot support any bill that raises taxes.”

If Democrats are able to persuade Cantwell to support the bill — and hold Collins, Snowe and Grassley — they would have a path to 60 votes.

But the likelihood of that scenario remained unclear Monday.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said the opposition from Feingold and Cantwell was empowering Republicans.

"No one has shown me a strategy by which my friends on the left can get a better bill," Frank said. "So I mean, if they vote against cloture, what they do is they increase the leverage of people who want to weaken it. So I don’t understand how, if you start out in the position that you want a stronger bill, you take an action which can only have the effect of weakening the bill."


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Sources: MSNBC, Politico, Google Maps

Elaine Marshall (Dem) vs. Richard Burr (Rep) For US Senate In 2010

News & Observer----

Elaine Marshall running for U.S. Senate

NC Secretary of State Elaine Marshall filed paperwork Tuesday to create a campaign committee to run for the U.S. Senate next year.

"We’ll have a more formal announcement in the future," said Thomas Mills, a consultant for Marshall. "We were feeling we just needed to get started in moving forward."

Marshall joins Kenneth Lewis, a Durham lawyer and the only other announced Democratic candidate, in the field to take on U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican. Other Democrats eyeing the race include former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham and U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge.

Marshall, a former state senator, was first elected secretary of state in 1996, when she defeated NASCAR legend Richard Petty. She was the first woman elected to statewide executive office. In 2002, she unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.


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Sources: News & Observer, Wikipedia, Day Life, Google Maps

Sotomayor Explains "Wise Latina" Remarks, Gains Support From Leahy and Sessions

Politico--

Senate Democrats turned the usually staid meet and greet for President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee into a full blown PR offensive Tuesday, defending Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s record while offering her first public defense of her controversial comments about race.


Democrats are also pushing an accelerated timetable for her confirmation, and are trying to lay the groundwork for a vote before the long August recess, despite Republican complaints that such a schedule wouldn’t give them enough time to scour Sotomayor’s judicial record. Democrats may lay out a hearing schedule before the end of the week, Senate sources said.

The Democratic push – coming as Sotomayor had a whirlwind day of visits with 10 senators – is aimed at building momentum for her nomination, while pressuring Republicans not to slow or block her path to the Supreme Court.


Sotomayor told several Democratic senators, in private meetings in the Capitol, that her comment that a “wise Latina woman” could render a better judgment than a white male judge was part of a much broader speech and that ultimately she was committed to following the rule of law above anything else.


In defusing the controversy over the “wise Latina” comment, Democrats sought to put the spotlight back on Sotomayor’s extensive legal career, assure the public she was committed to following the law and is not an activist judge.


Typically senators are largely mum about their private conversations with high-profile nominees. But Democratic senators, after watching Sotomayor get ripped for the past week by conservative commentators, chose to reveal much more of their conversations from Tuesday’s closed door meetings.

“What she said was of course one’s life experience shapes who you are,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who Sotomayor cleared to give her first public response on the controversy. “But ultimately and completely … as a judge you follow the law.”


But Sotomayor did not concede that she used a “poor” choice of words, as Obama himself suggested Friday even as he said that her statements had been taken out of context.


Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, said she didn’t acknowledge using a poor choice of words but put in a context for him to understand better. She told him: “’basically it means that’s part of my life experience that I bring to my judgment.’ She said, ‘Maybe it means with this background I’m a better listener, I listen for better things. But ultimately, it’s not going to decide any case for me.’”

“What Judge Sotomayor was saying was, ‘this is part of who I am. … This will be one of the things that I use to understand the people who come before – the cases that come before – but she said in the end that it’s the law that will decide.”

And another Judiciary Committee member, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who lunched with the nominee along with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), said Sotomayor pointed out that her comments in the speech where she made this remark also referenced the fact that Brown v. Board of Education was decided by nine white males, and she argued that her speech should be considered in its broader context.

In her 2001 speech, Sotomayor also explained that the experiences of white men affect how they render their law and that she has worked to overcome personal biases and assumptions to issue fair rulings.

Durbin said Sotomayor told her that her “judgment is not to be trumped by gender and race.”

While Democrats seemed willing to repeat the highlights of their conversation with Sotomayor as part of the PR offensive, Republican senators withheld judgment and offered skeptical questions over her approach to the law.


Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he was "very impressed" with her knowledge, experience and energy level. But he added that questions remain about her approach she would take to the law – even as she told him she “ultimately and completely” would follow the law.

“Some of the writings she has made, some of the speeches that she has made are troubling,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee who also met with the nominee Tuesday. “They’d be troubling to anybody who is fair.”


“I think we need to hold our fire until we examine all of these opinions and writings,” said Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who sits on the Judiciary Committee. “I think what this could boil down to -- and we'll have to examine very carefully all of the evidence -- is what this judge's view of judging is. Is it the same as the president's, which I reject, or is it more in common with what past judges and justices have done in deciding the cases on the merits rather their own feelings?”

Escorted by a handful of aides, Sotomayor was armed with talking points for her Senate visits, including telling several of them that the law was “ultimately and completely” the guiding force in how she makes decisions from the bench – even if her background helps guide how she comes to a decision.

Leahy and Sessions are planning to hold a critical meeting Wednesday morning to discuss timing on considering the nominee.


Leahy said Tuesday that Sotomayor has been the subject of “vicious” attacks – including one by Tom Tancredo likening her involvement with La Raza to that of the Ku Klux Klan and Rush Limbaugh calling her a “racist” – and he wants her to come before the committee as early as July. He said it would be “irresponsible” to wait until September to hold hearings since she would not be able to respond to the attacks, but Sessions disagreed.


“I don't think it will be irresponsible,” Sessions responded. “I hope the chairman will keep an open mind on this.”

If no deal is reached, Democrats expect an announcement on the hearing schedule to be issued in the coming days, with July a likely target, sources said.

"It will not be a fair process if they do that," Hatch said, adding that "some might" vote against her if that happened.

“I know how difficult it is for somebody who is nominated, they can’t answer charges, they can’t speak out when they’re a nominee,” Leahy said.

Sources: Politico, Day Life

Sotomayor Goes To "The Hill"

The Hill Briefing Room---

Judge Sonia Sotomayor is expected to make her case in person this week as she visits Capitol Hill for the first time as President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.

And despite harsh criticisms from prominent conservative figures, the federal court of appeals judge can expect a fair hearing from the people who will actually vote on her confirmation: sitting U.S. senators.

A review of the morning talk shows Sunday evidence that while Republicans sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee have a healthy dose of skepticism about Sotomayor’s legal record, none were willing to vote against her or commit to a filibuster yet. And almost all praised her tough upbringing as a child of a single mother growing up in a South Bronx public housing project.

Perhaps most importantly, none of the Republicans repeated the most explosive charge coming from party figures such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and conservative talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh — that Sotomayor is a racist. Most dispelled that argument outright or declined to comment on it.

In fact, Sotomayor found high praise in an unusual place: Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). On "Meet The Press" Sunday, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking member described her as having an “almost ideal” mix of experience for a Supreme Court nominee, with her resume boasting stints as a prosecutor, private litigator and a trial judge before sitting on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

On her tour of Capitol Hill, Sotomayor can begin trying to soothe worries over her statement that resulted in the racism charges. The judge gave a 2001 speech in which she suggested that a Latina woman would make a better judge than a white man.

That has angered Republicans the most, but those who appeared on the Sunday talk shows all seemed willing to listen to the New York judge’s explanations behind the speech.

Scheduled on Sotomayor’s itinerary this week are reportedly visits with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and possibly his counterpart, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Also included are stops with Sessions and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman.

What is the most useful for the nomination process from Sotomayor’s extensive record is not her 17 years on the bench but that she has gone through Senate confirmation twice.

She is also no stranger to judicial politics. Her nomination to the court of appeals was held up by Republicans in 1998 over worries that she would make it to the Supreme Court. Now, more than 10 years later, Sotomayor will begin to make that case in person this week.

Sources: The Hill Briefing Room, Huffington Post