Collective Conscious

Finan­cial reform:

Big news out of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives today, as they beat back attempts to kill the Con­sumer Finan­cial Prod­ucts Admin­is­tra­tion and then man­aged to pass finan­cial reform. The final vote had 223 in the “aye” col­umn, which is slim, though not as slim as health care’s 220.

Energy pol­icy:

An influ­en­tial bipar­ti­san pair of sen­a­tors unveiled a cli­mate change mea­sure Fri­day that is intended as an alter­na­tive to “cap-​​and-​​trade” leg­is­la­tion, poten­tially com­pli­cat­ing the dynam­ics of pass­ing a global warm­ing bill in the Senate.

This is a big slate for Democ­rats to take on, but they’re going to get it done before they lose the super­ma­jor­ity in Jan­u­ary 2011. And I’m proud of that.