A Gridlocked Senate Agrees to A Few Limits on Filibusters
Under new rules the Senate was set to approve on Thursday, Democrats and Republicans agreed to take some modest steps to limit the filibuster and help break the gridlock that has rendered the modern Congress ineffective and inefficient.
Senators who rarely reach across the aisle on much of anything these days found common ground in their disillusionment and decided on a compromise in which both parties will give something up.
The end result preserved one of the more peculiar aspects of the Senate. The majority will still not have absolute rule. The minority — currently Republican — will preserve its ability to force a supermajority of 60 votes to advance bills.
Advocates of a more comprehensive overhaul wrote the new rules off as just one more disappointment from a Senate that has failed time after time to act decisively on major issues. Common Cause, the watchdog group, called it a capitulation.
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Ex-Prosecutor Mary Jo White Named to Top S.E.C. Post
President Obama announced Thursday his nomination of Mary Jo White, a former federal prosecutor turned white-collar defense lawyer, to be the next chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.“It’s not enough to change the law,” Mr. Obama said. “We also need cops on the beat to enforce the law.”President Obama’s selection to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, indicated a resolve to take Wall Street to task over wrongdoing.
But she could face questions about her command of arcane financial minutiae. She was a director of the Nasdaq stock market, but has otherwise built her career on the law-and-order side of the securities industry.
Some Democrats might question her path through the revolving door, in and out of government. While seen as a strong enforcer as a United States attorney, she went on in private practice to defend some of Wall Street’s biggest names, including Kenneth D. Lewis, a former head of Bank of America. She also represented JPMorgan Chase and the board of Morgan Stanley. Last year, the N.F.L. hired her to investigate allegations that the New Orleans Saints carried out a bounty system for hurting opponents.
Consumer advocates generally praised her appointment on Thursday. “Mary Jo White was a tough, smart, no-nonsense, broadly experienced and highly accomplished prosecutor,” said Dennis Kelleher, head of Better Markets, the nonprofit advocacy group. “She knew who the bad guys were, went after them and put them in prison when they broke the law.”