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Senate Democrats announced that they have the votes to secure passage of financial services reform legislation in the Senate after getting support Monday night from Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
The bill is H.R. 4173, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
The bill passed the House June 30, 237-192.
Earlier in the day, a spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Senate majority leader, said he had hoped to complete work on the bill this week, hopefully by Thursday, but was at that time one vote short of the 60 needed to limit debate on the measure.
In a statement issued by Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, at 8:22 p.m. on July 12, the Democratic Senate leadership said it had confirmed the support of Sen. Snowe for the legislation, giving Democrats the 60 votes needed to surmount a key parliamentary hurdle.
She joined Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who reiterated her support for the legislation last week, and Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., who, as reported by NU Online News Service, announced earlier Monday that he would support the bill.
“Today is a good day for Main Street America,” Sen. Dodd said.
“With the support of Senators Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Scott Brown, Wall Street reform is a step away from heading to the president’s desk to be signed into law,” Sen. Dodd said.
“These colleagues demonstrated how bipartisanship is supposed to work. When they had concerns about the bill they worked with members of both parties to see that they were addressed, and in return they were all able to make significant contributions to this bill,” he added.
“I thank Senators Collins, Snowe, and Brown for their efforts which made this a stronger bill,” Sen. Dodd said.