Senate ends debate on financial reform

Only 51 votes are required to for the bill to pass, after which it will go to a joint House and Senate committee that will iron out differences between the Senate's overhaul and a bill that passed in the House in December.

The Hill quoted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as saying: "It's been a good debate. It's been the way the Senate should operate more often than it has."
A previous vote to end debate on the bill failed.

The cloture vote passed with three Republicans, including Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., who voted no previously.

To win Brown's vote, Reid reassured the Massachusetts lawmaker "issues related to Massachusetts … will be fixed before it is signed into law," CNN quoted Brown spokeswoman Gail Gitcho as saying.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).