Liveblogging The War On Wall Street Reform

5:00

Looks like this is over for today. And that's a good thing. The amendments that Dodd and Reid were trying to block were good amendments that would strengthen both the reform bill and our economy. Two firm progressives stood up and rejected a bill that was unnecessarily weak, and now votes on derivatives reform, Merkley-Levin and other important amendments can be considered.

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4:50

Weird business going on. Dodd just passed the Snowe amendment-- which hurts consumers-- by a voice vote. The vote tallying on the overall bill then resumed.

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4:35

There it is. On a vote of 57 - 42 the vote fails. Reid wants to try again.

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4:07

CNBC is reporting that the cloture vote has "failed," although the vote is still open.

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4:00

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., also voted against cloture. But Sen. Olympia Snow, R-Maine, has voted in favor. They still need two Republican votes, or debate remains open.

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3:48

Still waiting on the final cloture vote, but Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has made good on his promise to filibuster a bill that does is unnecessarily weak. He voted against cloture. So far, no Republicans have voted in favor.

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3:35

Reid just invoked the cloture vote. He portrayed it as a question of bipartisanship-- will Republicans let Democrats proceed with a vote on this bill? The real issue, of course, is that Reid and Sen. Chris Dodd have blocked a handful of key progressive amendments because they were worried they might actually pass.

After cloture, the leadership can rule just about any amendment as "non-germane," giving them leeway to block all of those progressive amendments that they're trying to block now. By the way, those amendments include the Merkley-Levin amendment, which would implement President Obama's signature Wall Street reform, the Volcker Rule. We'll see what happens.

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2:05

"If they are successful in defeating this amendment, it's clearly a win for the Wall Street banks."

That's Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, going to bat for Merkley-Levin on the Senate floor as we speak.

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1:50 p.m.

Reid just said we'll be hearing floor speeches until 3:15. Cloture has at least been delayed. Progressives are refusing to bend to Republicans.

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UPDATE 1:00 P.M

Dodd just tried to move on amendments by Sens. Snowe, R-Maine, Landrieau, D-La., Vitter, R-La., and Whitehouse, D-R.I., and then proceed to the cloture vote. Sen. Carl Levin objected, presumably because his amendment to implement the Volcker Rule was not included.

This was an explicit attempt to weaken the bill and block progressive improvements. The only amendment of those Dodd wanted to offer that would strengthen the bill would be the Whitehouse amendment, but Dodd wanted to impose a 60-vote standard for that amendment alone. Notably, Dodd did not request that any of the important amendments to strengthen derivatives regulation be included, nor did he go to bat for Merkley-Levin.

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The Senate Wall Street reform bill could very well come undone today. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., are pushing to end debate on the bill, and preclude any votes on key progressive and moderate amendments. Most notably, an amendment to implement President Barack Obama's signature reform-- the Volcker Rule-- could go down without a vote.

Republicans unleashed a swarm of procedural maneuvers yesterday to keep the key amendment, penned by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., from coming up for a vote-- in large part because Merkley and Levin contend they have the 60 votes needed to override a filibuster. The amendment would take a modest but critical step toward reining in Wall Street by banning banks from gambling with taxpayer-guaranteed deposits.

But several other key amendments are also in jeopardy. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., would strengthen reform of derivatives, the wild west market that killed AIG, while Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., would go even further and ban any derivatives that constitute raw gambling. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., would allow states to cap interest rates on credit cards and mortgages, and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, wants to cap ATM fees at 50 cents.

All of these amendments would be productive, but if the Senate votes to end debate on the bill at 2:00 p.m. today, they will not even come up for a vote. Not all of these are even definitively "progressive" amendments-- Wall Street just doesn't like them. Take Cantwell's amendment. It basically requires that derivatives be traded on open and trasparent exchanges, the same way stocks are traded. Right now that market operates totally in the dark, making it a hotbed for abuse and excess, exemplified by AIG. But this exchange-trading reform is already in the existing legislation-- it's just shot through with Wall Street-friendly loopholes. Cantwell's bill would simply remove those loopholes.

These are real opportunities to strengthen the legislation. The idea that Merkley-Levin, the best version of Obama's own core reform, could go down without even a vote says a lot about where the Senate's priorities are right now.

It also says a lot about Obama's priorities. The White House has been silent-- absolutely silent-- since Republicans blocked the vote on the Volcker Rule yesterday. Obama must seize the moment here and stand up for real reform. If he doesn't, and instead allows Republicans to defeat his signature proposal without even putting up a fight, it will be a political black eye for the president, as well as a setback for our economy.

It's not at all clear what will happen when the cloture vote comes. Several slighted progressives have indicated they will not vote to end debate until their amendments are at least put up to a vote. That will make a 60-vote threshold very hard to meet. But it's not at all clear how a failure to meet 60 votes would affect the overall bill.

The vote is currently scheduled for 2 p.m. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Salon's Andrew Leonard offers similar thoughts.

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