Just A Bill, Sitting on Capitol Hill--Credit Card Edition

The House just passed the Senate's "tougher" version of Credit Card Legislation. The House and Senate leadership have fulfilled their promise to get the bill to President Obama's desk by Memorial Day. There are lots of guides floating around out there which summarize what this means for you. What it means for your season-opening barbeque on Sunday remains to be seen...

The vote on the final bill was 361-64. Not close. However, there was one interesting procedural note. The House chose to split out the Coburn gun amendment (Section 512 of the Senate bill) for a separate vote. This allowed Democrats to showcase their opposition to the proposal, but was a move without any actual impact--as Section 512 passed on a vote of 279-147.

The vote breakdowns are actually pretty interesting in and of themselves. On the legislation itself, 64 Republicans and one Democrat voted against the bill. The one Democrat was Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD-AL). There's that South Dakota again. On the Coburn amendment 145 Democrats and two Republicans voted against--Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE-AL) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL-10). All politics is local, as they say...