Obama Loses Control of the Process; Reid Loses Senate Cloture Vote

May 20, 2010 (LPAC)—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lost a vote on cloture to proceed to an accelerated debate and vote on the Dodd Bill Wednesday — without Glass-Steagall — when Democrats Maria Cantwell of Washington and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, respectively a sponsor and a co-sponsor of the amendment to restore Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall protections, courageously voted with the Republicans against Reid's cloture motion. Once it was clear that he had lost, Reid changed his own "yes" vote to "no," in order to be able to bring the same motion up again in the future under an arcane Senate rule.

Reid called the vote on cloture at 3:35pm Wednesday by saying that efforts to reach a "consent agreement" on amendments had failed, but that Sen. Dodd had agreed to continue to try to reach such an agreement after cloture was passed. Coupled with Cantwell's and Feingold's votes, this indicates that Politico's Tuesday morning report that the Cantwell-McCaine Glass-Steagall amendment had been incorporated into a Reid-Dodd "manager's amendment," was disinformational. Cantwell has said repeatedly that she would vote against cloture if Senate leaders refused to allow the Cantwell-McCain amendment to be voted on.

Sixty votes are required for cloture, but after Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts, the Democrats only have 59 Senate seats, so they need one Republican vote, even if all Democrats remain united. In this case, Republicans Collins and Snowe of Maine crossed over to vote for cloture, while Cantwell and Feingold crossed over the other way. The just-defeated Democrat Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania never showed up to vote at all, while Reid changed his own vote to "no" in a parliamentary manuever. Hence the recorded vote of 57 "aye" and 42 "no."