Roll Call is reporting the Bernanke Senate confirmation might actually be in peril, as in not enough votes.
Ben Bernanke’s nomination to serve a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve appears to be in peril. Bernanke is up for a second term at the Fed; his current term expires in 10 days on Jan. 31. A handful of Senators had previously threatened to filibuster the nomination, but this week the number of opposing lawmakers appeared to grow, further dimming his prospects for installment.
Wow. Honestly I didn't think this would happen, so for all of those who want to burn Ben, I sure hope you're thinking of a better replacement right now, before we get the likes of a Larry Summers as a new nominee.
Here's some new details on Senators:
- Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) - undecided
- Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) - coy
- Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) - undecided
- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) - leaning no
- Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) - undecided
- Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE) - undecded
Here are the confirmation holds:
- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
- Sens. Jim Bunning (R-KY)
- Jim DeMint (R-SC)
- David Vitter (R-LA)
The procedure vote of 60 is required to remove the holds and Sen. Bryon Dorgan (D-ND) is on record to say he would block the this procedure vote. Now, the actual 50 votes to confirm is also in peril in addition to the 60 needed to for the cloture vote to remove the holds and end debate.
Currently the vote is delayed, depending on answers of the Fed's role in bail outs.
It seems Democrats are discussing behind closed doors and it's important to note that three of the GOP Senators on the Senate banking committee all put in a confirmation hold.
Will the rest of the GOP Senators follow their lead in either vote?
This is quite shocking for we know a host of Senators love Wall Street and Lobbyists and Ben has been very good to them.
The Wall Street Journal reports Senator Sanders is rounding up more votes to not meet the 60 to remove the holds.
Update: Huffpo is now counting votes:
We found 26 senators in all. Half were undecided; one wouldn't say; three were outright nays; only nine were firmly in the aye column.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) summed it for many of her colleagues. The decision, she said, "gives me heartburn."
Along with Mikulski, eight other Democratic senators said they are undecided, including Maria Cantwell (Wash.), Ben Cardin (Md.), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Carl Levin (Mich.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Bob Casey (Pa.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Debbie Stabenow (Mich.).
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) declined to say which way he would vote or whether he's made up his mind.
Republican Sens. Kit Bond (Mo.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) also said they are undecided.
The nine yes votes: Democrats Tom Carper (Del.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Daniel Inouye (Hawaii), Paul Kirk (Mass.) and Mark Warner (Va.), plus Republicans Susan Collins (Maine), George Voinovich (Ohio) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.), along with independent Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) all said they'd vote to confirm Bernanke.
Update 2: Two Senators, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) have announced they are a no vote on Bernanke's confirmation.
Update 3: Harry Reid will support Bernanke.
Update 4: Chris Dodd, Judd Gregg are both yes votes. These two are also blocking Fed transparency.
Update 5: John Kerry says he will vote for Bernanke, bringing the yes vote tally to 27 and 15 will vote no. 58 have not declared.
Update 6: GOP minority leader McConnell claims Bernanke will be confirmed. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is a no vote.
This post is being updated
as vote counts come in. So, you might check back. It's astounding that pretty much anything that makes sense cannot be passed by the Senate so I'm really didn't expect to see this one.
I think it might dawn on some running for office in 2010 that Americans are really pissed about the government giving away our jobs yet saving the Zombie banks.
Look at this ridiculous threat from Geithner on Bernanke
Geithner is claiming they have to confirm Bernanke otherwise the markets will tank
Right Senate, that's right, forget about the massive unemployment, the overall state of the economy, yuppers, just give bankers their personal Fed Chair because OMG the markets might tank for a few days if you don't.
(ignore the fact many are predicting a major market correction since their "green shoots" beliefs are not materializing on the overall state of the economy).
What's really scary about Bernanke!
Great points! Sometime back, I forget now where, unfortunately, I read an article detailing how Bernanke had to call in a bunch of people to brief him on derivatives (evidently he's not too aware of them, nor any in-depth knowledge of securitization --- and certainly not any historical knowledge of it) prior to going before congress to give testimony after the meltdown awhile back.
Yeah, sure, we really need someone like him at the helm....
that doesn't bother me
I mean I had to learn about derivatives and in some cases, I would have been royally screwed without a mathematics background on top of it. What is disgusting, to this day, is we cannot get reforms on these things which...Jesus, if they can put Madoff in jail forever, one would think these empty gambling quatloos where the newcomers fighting to the death are the U.S. taxpayer, middle class...
could be criminalized.
What bothers me most about Bernanke is his fighting the CFPA and his refusal to disclose who got the $2 trillion dollars in loans.
I still am not in any way convinced the original TARP was even necessary, I still believe it was a glorified disaster capitalism fear tactic to rip off the American people and keep these few financial institutions little quatloos betting game alive.
He was part of that and then he endorsed Greenspan's policies for years, which did so much harm to the U.S. economy...to me the entire housing bubble was a huge cover up while they destroyed the real economy, i.e. offshore outsourced manufacturing, trade deficit ballooned, tech workers arbitraged and so on.
I want Bernanke gone. I was on the fence but the more I see this most interesting public relations campaign to claim he's in, the powers behind that massive propaganda machine....are our quatloo players and thus I want him gone. He's clearly their boy.
Double standard
Ryan Grimm from Huffpost is reporting that Democratic leadership is allowing a 50 vote threshold for Bernanke nomination.
So there you have it a double standard:
Wall Street gets 50 vote threshold for Bernanke.
We get 60 vote threshold for even the weakest of health care reform.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Rebel, can you make this comment an Instapopulist?
I think also you're tracking on "voting strategies".
That's most friggin' interesting and you're hitting on something I'm wondering about. I do not recall throughout the history of the Senate that magically one needed 60 votes all of the time to get anything done. Your comment is most insightful and if could expand in an Instapopulist I think it would be a hot read.
I will do it but I am trying to collect my thoughts
The level of deceit coming from the Democratic Party, especially the Obama Administration, is clouding my thoughts.
Give a second.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
Democrats including WH
fought harder for Wall Street favorite Ben Bernanke than they did for REAL health care reform.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.
RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.