This vote was on allowing to go forward a bill that would overhaul regulation of the financial services industry.  The bill would create new regulatory bodies to assess the risk posed by very large financial institutions and also would help break up very large firms that are failing.  Consumer financial products would be overseen by a new agency the bill would create.  It also would bring stiff oversight, for the first time, to complex financial instruments of the sort that have been partly blamed for the financial meltdown. 

Judd Gregg, R-N.H., attempted to defeat the bill with a parliamentary maneuver, saying the bill violates the Senate’s budgetary rules.  Chris Dodd, D-Conn., then made a motion that the rules be waived in this case, which is what this vote was on.

Gregg criticized the bill for raising the deficit.

“We have rules around here we have set up to discipline ourselves on spending. Unfortunately, we consistently ignore and waive them. That is one of the reasons we have a $13 trillion debt. That is one of the reasons we will have a $1.4 trillion deficit this year alone. This bill violates those rules. This bill violates one of the sections of those rules which says that in any 10-year period, we shall not have more than a $5 billion effect on the deficit in a negative way; that we need to otherwise pay for what we are doing,” Gregg said.  “If we are going to have any fiscal discipline around here—and we hear a lot of people talking about that—we should be living by the rules we have to assert fiscal discipline.”

Chris Dodd, D-Conn., did not offer a rebuttal, but simply called for waiving the rule, and then began voting on his waiver motion.

By a vote of 60-39, the rules were waived.  All but one Democrat present voted to waive the rules.  All but three Republicans present voted against waiving the rules.  The end result is that the rules were waived, the procedural objection failed, and the Senate moved toward final passage of a bill that would overhaul the financial regulatory system.