The House passage was a partisan political victory for first-year Democratic President Barack Obama. The vote on the 1,279-page bill, opposed uniformly by House Republicans, was 223-202, Politico reported. Twenty-seven Democrats joined GOP members in trying to prevent its passage.
The sweeping measure, which would create a new watchdog agency to guard consumers' interests and regulate everything from derivatives markets to credit cards, now goes to the Senate.
"The crisis from which we are still recovering was born not only of failure on Wall Street, but also in Washington," Obama said in a statement. "We have a responsibility to learn from it, and to put in place reforms that will promote sound investment, encourage real competition and innovation, and prevent such a crisis from ever happening again."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill is a clarion call to the nation's financial sector alerting it "the party is over" and there would be a new era of transparency and accountability.
"Never again will the reckless behavior [of] a few threaten the fiscal stability of our people," Pelosi told reporters after the historic vote.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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