Left pushes back on Wall Street reforms
CNN – In the U.S. Senate, the progressives are restless. A handful of them are making it known that Democratic leaders shouldn't take their votes for granted when it comes to Wall Street reform.
"I won't vote for a bill if the banks have control of it," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told CNN.
Brown sits on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and is among a group who are worried Democrats have given away too much to woo Republican support for the bill. "Republicans are doing the bidding of their benefactors, the banks," he said.
"We're in a wait and see mode," fellow Banking Democrat Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, told CNN. Earlier this week, Merkley and four other senators introduced a bill that would change the rules of the game on Wall Street far more dramatically than the proposal Dodd was said to be negotiating.
"We watched investment houses blow up, now there's even greater risk in the system," said Merkley, who insisted Congress needs to fix the entire "framework" that allowed big banks to make risky bets putting other peoples money at stake.