Democrats, Pressuring G.O.P., Unite on Finance Bill

From the New York Times:

Senate Democrats said Sunday that they had bridged internal party differences and coalesced around a plan to tighten regulation of derivatives, the complex financial instruments that were a major factor in the 2008 economic crisis.

The proposed derivatives rules are an important part of the effort to strengthen regulation of the nation’s financial system, and seem certain to anger some of Wall Street’s biggest players.

The agreement among Democrats would combine overlapping proposals on derivatives by the banking and agriculture committees, and it raised the pressure on Senate Republicans, who said that they were still fighting for changes to the bill and planned to block the start of floor debate in a first procedural vote on Monday.

For more on this afternoon's showdown over financial reform, see this item from the Times's Caucus blog and this story from The Washington Post. TalkingPointsMemo will be following all of the day's developments on its Financial Reform Wire.