Agreement Reached on Overhaul of U.S. Financial System (Dodd, Schumer & Clinton creat
 

*** The breakthrough in Friday's legislation came in a backroom meeting at the Capitol soon after midnight, when a group of moderate Senate Democrats -- led by Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Charles E. Schumer of New York -- forced a compromise between Gramm and the White House over the legislation's effect on the Community Reinvestment Act, a 1977 anti-discrimination law intended to encourage lending to minorities and others historically denied access to credit.

***

Gramm had maintained that he did not want anything in the bill that would expand the application of the Community Reinvestment Act because it was, he said, unnecessarily burdensome to banks. He had sought a provision that would exempt thousands of smaller banks from the law. He also wanted a provision that would expose what he has described as the "extortion" committed by community groups against banks by requiring the groups to disclose any special financial deals the groups extract from the banks.

*** The White House had insisted that the President would veto any legislation that would scale back minority-lending requirements. Four days of intense negotiations between Summers, Gene Sperling, the President's top economic policy adviser, and Gramm, while moving the two sides closer, failed to resolve the differences.

***

After receiving calls from executives of some of the nation's leading financial companies, An agreement was quickly reached on the issue of banks and expanded powers -- no institution would be allowed to move into any new lines of business without a satisfactory lending record.

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/...-congress.html

the dems hands are CLEAN!

They are not bought by any big interest groups
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lala...nk-of-ame.html