Finance Reform Battle Delayed…Again

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The financial reform battle—that is, to even start the full debate in the Senate—continues on here on Capitol Hill. For the third time in as many days, Senate GOPers defeated a vote to start debating financial reform legislation, a bill that would try to end future taxpayer bailouts, create a new consumer protection agency to guard against predatory lenders and dangerous products, and shed light on the opaque, $450 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market. The vote was 56-42, with centrist Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) again voting with Republicans. Majority Leader Harry Reid ultimately voted against the bill, too, a maneuver that allows him to schedule another vote which could happen as early as Thursday morning.

The losing vote wasn’t entirely surprising, as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), a top Democratic negotiator on financial reform, said earlier Wednesday morning that his party still didn’t have the votes to begin the debate. Remarks on Wednesday by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) suggest the gulf between the two parties remains gaping and it could take several more days before an agreement is finally reached. “Are we close to wrapping up a comprehensive deal? No, we’re not close to that,” Shelby told MSNBC.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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