Dodd: FinReg to Move as Early as Wednesday

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is calling the Republicans out: The Senate plans to give them the opportunity to vote for or filibuster the financial regulatory reform bill as soon as Wednesday, Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo reports.

Democrats need one Republican crossover to break a filibuster and move forward to an up-or-down vote on financial regulation. Right now, it is unclear who that crossover will be, with all 41 Republicans signed on to a letter of opposition written by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was the last signer of the letter, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a strong proponent of the bill, is due to meet with her this afternoon.

Dodd, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, predicted that Republicans would not stick together to filibuster the bill. “I don’t really believe Republican members want to be with their leaders when they’re talking about filibustering a bill that would allow us to address [regulatory reform],” he said. Still, Republican leadership has repeatedly indicated that it plans to filibuster to force substantive changes to the legislation.

(As an aside — I doubt that the Senate would move the bill to the floor by Wednesday, given that Obama plans to make his banner speech on the subject at Cooper Union on Thursday.)