Republican senators advance bill to ease rules on smaller banks; Senate passage chances dim

Republican senators have advanced legislation that would ease rules on smaller banks and other requirements of the landmark law reining in Wall Street and the financial industry after the 2008 crisis.

But it received no support from Democrats, making its chances of Senate passage slim.

The 12-10 party-line vote came Thursday in a sometimes rancorous session of the Senate Banking Committee. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the committee's Republican chairman, authored the legislation that would bring a sweeping rewrite of the 2010 law that arose from the financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession. That law, known as Dodd-Frank, was enacted by a Congress controlled by Democrats despite Republican opposition.

The law tightened government oversight of banks and financial markets to avert another crisis and another taxpayer bailout of banks.