Senate

Paul presses Warren, Sanders on ‘Audit the Fed’ bill

by Jordain Carney - 01/11/16 11:00 AM ET

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is challenging Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to back his legislation to audit the Federal Reserve ahead of a procedural vote Tuesday.

“We’ve had a lot of Democrats who claim that they’re concerned about big banks and big banks controlling things and a revolving door between Wall Street and big banks and the Federal Reserve,” he told reporters during a conference call Monday. “We’ll see if any of those loud voices — Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren — are they loud voices that really are for more oversight of the banking system?”

{mosads}Paul’s comments come as the Senate is scheduled to take a procedural vote Tuesday afternoon on his legislation, which would subject the central bank to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.

The Kentucky Republican could face an uphill battle to get the 60 votes needed to move the legislation forward.

Paul acknowledged on Monday that he’s gotten the “resistance of some establishment Republicans,” including Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala), who chairs the Senate Banking Committee.

So far the legislation has 24 cosponsors, all Republicans. He’ll need at least six Democrats to vote for the bill, if he can get every Republican to support it.

The vote on the proposal will put the spotlight on Paul days ahead of the next Republican presidential debate.

Asked if he would reconsider participating in the “undercard” debate so that he could talk about his “Audit the Fed” proposal, Paul doubled down on his push to be included on the main stage.

“We expect to be included on the main stage on the strength of the last polling,” he told reporters. “I think there’s a lot of evidence that would be difficult to overcome to try to exclude us.”

The Republican National Committee and Fox News are expected to announce on Monday which Republican presidential candidates made the cut for the main stage at Thursday’s debate.

Tags Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren Rand Paul