[classicman]

Senators load financial overhaul with irrelevancies

WASHINGTON — Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., wants the government to finish building the 700-mile fence between the U.S. and Mexico. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., wants to end the health insurance industry's antitrust protection. West Virginia's two senators want help with mine and oil rig safety.

They all want to add these things to the financial regulatory overhaul bill that's moving through the Senate, even though their ideas have little or nothing to do with oversight of financial markets.

Senators have proposed 326 amendments to the bill, whose chief purpose is to revamp the system that's regulated financial institutions since the Great Depression, but failed to prevent the current deep recession.

The bill could be the last major legislation this Congress approves — and draw enormous media attention — before November's congressional elections. That's why it's attracting a lot of extraneous amendments.

"A lot of senators see this bill as a good forum, and they see the session winding down after this," said David Arkush, the director of Congress Watch, a watchdog group.

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I think they see this as one of the last pieces of legislation getting done before the potential clusterfuck returns.