On Tuesday evening, the Senate blocked Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in his attempt to get a vote on his controversial proposal to set a limit on ATM fees of 50 cents per transaction.
Harkin argued that he would only need five minutes to argue his case, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wouldn't even yield that much, as a transcript published at The Huffington Post bears out:
Harkin: This is the ATM amendment I had filed since the beginning, I would say to my leader, that I had filed since this bill was brought on the floor.
Reid: What about the annuity amendment?
Harkin: I have that amendment, too. I didn't know there was a limit. I have two amendments. I have an annuity amendments and I have the ATM amendment.
Reid: I guess my questions through the chair to my friend from Iowa is, rather than go into quorum call tonight, you could always do that some other time. I think it would be more appropriate if your amendment dealing with annuities -- there are other amendments that have been agreed to, we could see if we could dispose of those.
Harkin: No, I will not be able to. Because there will ago cloture vote tomorrow and I will have been precluded for three weeks from offering my amendment. And, you know, that's not quite fair ball around here.
Reid: But at least - but, I would say --
Harkin: I had only asked for -- I said I'd do my amendment in five minutes. I don't need to take much time with my amendment.
Reid: But I say again through the chair to my friend, it seems that it would be better that you would have the opportunity at least to get the annuity amendment, which a number of us believe is a very important amendment, and I would feel -- I think it would be better that we were able to at least get rid of that amendment in a positive way, because I think there's a very important amendment. If I had to choose between your ATM amendment or the -- the amendment dealing with annuities, it would be hard for me to make a choice which one is the more important amendment. So it is not a question of not having two amendments. It is a question of, couldn't we at least dispose of one of them, which is an important amendment? Otherwise the way this train is going, we may never get to the annuity amendment.
