I see that Chris Dodd’s credit card reform bill passed the Senate 90-5 today. This is even better than I expected, and goes to show the agenda-setting power of being in the majority. In the past, Republicans could have simply prevented a bill like this from coming to the floor, thus sparing themselves the political difficulty of voting against it. Now they can’t do that. They have to vote whether they like it or not. And since credit card reform really is a hot button issue, their sense of self-preservation got the better of them and they gave the bill a massive majority.
Which is fine, but I suspect it also means that Dodd could have played hardball a little more strenuously than he did and negotiated a better bill. Who knows? If Dems figure this out, maybe it will be the first legislation in history to actually be improved in conference.
Oh — and all the boo hooing from the credit card industry? If you believe even a single word of it, you need to run not walk to your local emergency room and have them do an MRI on your brain. There’s a chunk missing.
