Senate Dems plan a busy schedule as SCOTUS debate looms

Senate Democratic leaders will push an agenda topped by a
banking reform bill over the seven-week work period before Memorial Day.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ retirement announcement Friday
isn’t likely to derail the Democratic agenda in the upper chamber, since
President Barack Obama’s nominee will be sent first to the Judiciary Committee.
Obama has said he will select a nominee within weeks.

{mosads}That leaves Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd’s banking reform bill as the
majority party’s top priority before lawmakers next leave town for the first
week of June.

The Connecticut Democrat is still negotiating with Sen.
Richard Shelby (Ala.), the committee’s ranking Republican, on the final draft
of the bill.

In March, Dodd said the bill would likely emerge a week or
two after recess and that he hoped for final passage before the summer, when
election-year politics dooms deal-making.

“What I’m facing mostly is the 101st senator, and that is
the clock, particularly in an election year,” he said. “And that 101st
senator, that clock, becomes a rather demanding member. Because as time moves
on, you just limit the possibility of getting anything done, particularly a bill
of this magnitude and complexity.”

Democrats have felt momentum on financial regulatory reform
ever since the healthcare bill was signed into law. Republicans did not offer
amendments against the bill in Dodd’s committee markup, and the GOP has
acknowledged the issue is a tough one for them given Wall Street’s unpopularity
with voters.

Dodd told reporters when he introduced his bill that the
nature of the election year means that the legislation must get passed before
summer. Since Dodd’s bill will have to be reconciled with House legislation, it
will be important for the Senate to complete its work by the Memorial Day
recess.

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told The Hill last month his members
“aren’t necessarily opposed” to the banking bill, and one senior GOP aide said
it is heartening that Dodd and Shelby are still talking.

“It could be an indicator that the Democrats are interested in an
accomplishment rather than just an opportunity to score political points,” the
aide said.

The work period is likely to start with some acrimony over legislation to
extend unemployment benefits.

Republicans are blocking an extension unless the cost of the
benefits are paid for with spending cuts to other programs, and Sen. Tom Coburn
(R-Okla.) told The Hill last week he will block any spending bill that is
similarly unfunded.

Democrats contend the benefits are emergency spending and do
not have to be offset.

A procedural vote is scheduled Monday evening to move to the bill, but a final
vote might not come until the end of the week unless a deal is reached.

Both parties are already under pressure to pass the
extension, since benefits expire for 200,000 unemployed people each week that
action isn’t taken. Republicans say the benefits would be provided retroactively
and are only being delayed, not denied.

Besides Dodd’s banking reform bill, a senior Democratic aide said the party
also plans to pursue a job-growth bill focused on benefits for small
businesses, as well as tax-extenders legislation.

But it is the banking bill that will generate the most friction in the coming
weeks.

Democrats need at least one Republican to vote to move the
bill forward since they only control 59 seats, one shy of the 60 necessary to
win procedural motions.

Republicans are therefore wary that Democratic leaders will use the occasion to
slip pet priorities into the bill and dare the GOP to oppose the overall
package.

A separate senior Democratic aide
close to the bill’s drafting process said Dodd has publicly stated that he
would keep the bill clean and narrowly focused.

“Everybody knows Dodd has bent over backwards to make this a bipartisan bill,
and it’s Republicans who have stood in the way,” the aide said. “They’re trying
to make this into a partisan fight, and nobody else is.”