Wall Street Reform Flies Through Committee, Headed For Floor Fight

Ryan Grim and Shahien Nasiripour
HuffPost

The Senate Banking Committee, after months of negotiations, finally came to bipartisan agreement on Monday evening, but it wasn't over the contents of financial reform legislation: The two parties agreed to skip the committee process and head straight for the Senate floor.

Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) brought an amended version of the Democratic bill to the committee, where it faced hundreds of amendments from both sides. The debate that was expected last week -- a protracted affair in which Republicans and Democrats slugged it out over issues like consumer protection, derivatives and ending Too Big To Fail -- fizzled within 18 minutes of Dodd beginning his opening statement. The senators who assembled outside the hearing room to answer questions from reporters gathered for about 10 minutes. The bill -- which touches on nearly every facet of finance -- passed out of the committee by a 13-10, strictly party-line vote.

Now that the bill is headed to the floor, Dodd said later on Monday, before heading to the White House for a health care meeting, he'll reach out to Republicans off the committee such as Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine) and George Voinovich (Ohio), who are more likely to cut a deal. "Absolutely," he said when asked of those two members. "It's a broader audience that's going to be interested in it."

(More here.)