GOP unites, urges Reid to reopen bipartisan talks on Wall Street bill

All 41 Senate Republicans have signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urging him to reopen bipartisan negotiations on a Wall Street reform bill.

The unified Republican front puts pressure on Democratic leaders to make revisions to legislation drafted by Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) with substantial input from the White House.

“We are united in our opposition to the partisan legislation reported by the Senate Banking Committee,” Republicans wrote in the letter. “As currently constructed, this bill allows for endless taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street and establishes new and unlimited regulatory powers that will stifle small businesses and community banks.”

Republican lawmakers urged Reid to ask Democratic and Republican negotiators to sit down and address their concerns.

The letter is significant because it presents a unified front and shows Reid that he cannot pass financial regulatory reform without making some changes. Democrats need at least one Republican vote to muster the 60 needed to overcome various procedural objections.

The letter, however, is not as strong as some GOP lawmakers described earlier in the week.

A senior GOP lawmaker said the letter originally pledged that Republicans would vote as a bloc to filibuster a motion to proceed to the bill next week unless Reid reopened it to negotiation.

“The only way we can get in the room is to show Democrats that they can’t ram a bill through the Senate,” said the lawmaker.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voiced objections to the bill but declined to box herself in by signing a letter pledging to filibuster a motion to begin debate.

“I oppose Sen. Dodd's bill,” Collins told reporters Thursday. “I am still talking with my colleagues about whether a letter is the most effective way to send the message, or whether there are better ways, and those discussions are still ongoing. 

“I agree with my colleagues that the Dodd bill is deeply flawed. But, as a former financial regulator, I also feel strongly that the current system is very flawed,” Collins said. “We need a financial regulatory bill, just not this one.”

Collins was the only Republican to decline to sign a letter pledging a filibuster of a motion to proceed to the bill, according to a GOP aide.

To win Collins's support, Republicans had to back off of a vow to filibuster the bill.

Forty-one solid commitments to block debate on the bill may have forced Reid to resume bipartisan negotiations. The softer GOP stance will give Reid less incentive to subject the bill to substantial revisions.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a leading member of the Senate Banking panel, who worked on a controversial provision addressing financial institutions that become too big to fail, predicted that important fixes could be made in short order.

During a floor speech Wednesday, Corker acknowledged that “criticisms about the [financial reform] bill potentially creating some large loopholes for large institutions not to go through orderly liquidation” are valid.

“But the fact is, I think we could fix those in about five minutes,” he said.

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