By Ted Nesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Rhode Island’s congressional delegation slammed the Internal Revenue Service on Monday for giving special scrutiny to conservative groups, but U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse suggested the scandal reflects a broken national campaign-finance system.

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Philip Elliott reports for the AP:

[A] collection of Democratic lawmakers on Thursday renewed their push to keep rates low but also backed interest rates that were based on the markets. Their plan would base rates on a 91-day Treasury bill and allow the Education Department to add to that to pay for the administration of loan programs.

“The student loan interest rate offered by the government shouldn’t be needlessly high, it should be based on actual costs,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in introducing the plan.

The versions from both parties include a proposal that was central to Obama’s budget: interest rates would shift based on financial markets. …

Basing student loans on 10-year Treasury notes’ rates would, at least for now, offer a deal to some students. … That’s not to say, however, the rates would be a good deal forever. If Treasury increases its rates, students’ loan rates would rise, too.

For context, under the current system Congress sets the actual numerical interest rate on student loans – that’s why the rate is currently set by law at 3.8% and is (again) scheduled to rise to 6.8% on July 1. (Hence the growing focus on the issue at the moment.)

Reed’s bill would have Congress stop setting the rate by statute and start basing it on market movements instead, as outlined above. However – unlike similar proposals from President Obama and House Republicans – Reed’s bill would set a maximum cap on rates: 6.8% for subsidized loans and 8.25% for unsubsidized loans. It would also allow students to refinance their loans at a lower rate.

Why the cap? According to Reed, it’s necessary because someday interest rates will return to a higher level.

Reed’s staff says college graduates in the Class of 2007 would have paid almost 8% and the Class of 1981 would have paid almost 17% if the House GOP proposal had been law at the time. Using CBO economic forecasts, they project rates will be back above 8% by 2018 under the Obama/GOP proposals.

The White House and Republicans argue Reed’s proposal could raise costs for borrowers or force other taxpayers to subsidize student loans. “In order to have a cap, we would have to charge students more in order to hedge against the possibility that rates would go up to unmanageable levels in the future,” an administration official told reporters April 10.

While a capped market rate is Reed’s vision for a permanent fix on student loans, in the meantime he’s introduced a bill to freeze current rates for two more years while Congress comes up with a long-term resolution. “Some who claim it is important to avoid burdening our children and grandchildren with national debt are all too willing to bury these young people in student debt,” Reed said in a statement Thursday.

Reed isn’t the only local senator arguing for a fresh approach to student loans. Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday introduced a bill to let students borrow at the same rate that big banks get from the Federal Reserve’s discount window.

(photo: Manuel Balce Caneta/AP)

Three of the four members of Rhode Island’s all-Democratic congressional delegation will take aim Wednesday at someone who’s an unusual target for them: President Obama.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman David Cicilline are among the eight members of Congress co-hosting a summit on Capitol Hill to criticize a proposal in Obama’s latest budget that would trim Social Security benefits by switching to a measure of inflation known as “chained CPI.”

Rhode Island’s entire delegation slammed the policy when it emerged, and Cicilline has garnered national attention for introducing a resolution that would have Congress express formal disapproval of chained CPI. U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont are also among the summit’s hosts, giving it a decidedly New England flavor.

There were 207,122 Rhode Island residents receiving Social Security benefits in December 2011, the most recent month for which figures are available – meaning nearly 20% of state residents are on Social Security. Two-thirds of Rhode Island’s beneficiaries were 65 or older, while 35,905 were disabled and 15,704 were children. The Rhode Islanders’ combined Social Security benefits totaled $236 million that month.

The congressional event at 12:30 p.m. will be streamed live online by Strengthen Social Security, a coalition of unions and progressive groups that supports increasing benefits.

• Related: RI congressional delegation slams Obama over Social Security (April 10)

The NYT taped an interview with Senator Reed to gauge his thoughts on the conflict in Syria. He’s cautious:

I think we really have to carefully look at the situation. The Israeli attacks [in Syria last weekend] were prompted more in terms of disrupting the flow of military equipment to Hezbollah, and not so much involvement in the political and military activities within Syria of the opposition.

I think, one, we want to with the regional partners look at what we can do to aid the opposition to be effective, inclusive, and to as quickly as possible try to force the Assad government out. They have been attacking their own people and they’ve been destroying their country, literally, so we want that. But the precise military steps, I think, have to be carefully calibrated.

Senator Whitehouse actually sounded more hawkish about Syria than Reed after a trip there in January, when he told me: “This is a chance for us to be the great power that comes to the relief of Syria so that 100 years from now we’re still remembered as the country that helped them get their freedom.”

• Related: Levin retirement sets up Jack Reed for powerful Armed Services chairmanship (March 7)

Back in January U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told WPRI.com one of the most important ways for a U.S. senator to be effective is basically out of his control: seniority.

If that’s the case, Whitehouse’s senior colleague Jack Reed is about to get significantly more effective.

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana on Tuesday became the sixth Senate Democrat to announce he will retire rather than seek re-election next year. All but one of those six lawmakers – New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg – have served in the Senate longer than Reed, who was first elected in 1996.

The departures of those five – Baucus, Carl Levin, Tom Harkin, Jack Rockefeller and Tim Johnson – will vault Reed from 14th to 9th on the list of the U.S. Senate’s most senior Democrats. Of course, that assumes Reed himself will win re-election next year – about as safe an assumption as there is in politics.

• Related: Levin retirement sets up Jack Reed for powerful chairmanship (March 7)

Click here for the video on CBSNews.com. (The embed code isn’t working.) Elizabeth Warren makes a cameo.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed doesn’t just debate taxes. He pays them, too.

Reed and his wife, Julia Hart Reed, paid $39,326 in federal income taxes and $12,565 in state income taxes on their 2012 adjusted gross income of $249,700, Reed spokesman Chip Unruh told WPRI.com on Monday.

Reed earned a gross salary of $174,000 as a U.S. senator, while Mrs. Reed earned $110,305 working for the Secretary of the State as an Interparliamentary Services Coordinator. Federal taxes are due Monday.

The Reeds filed a joint income tax return, paying 15.8% to the federal government and 5% to the state government. They took $61,150 in itemized deductions on their federal return and reported $3,000 in capital losses. The pair’s federal tax rate was calculated using the alternative minimum tax, or AMT.

The Reeds’ tax bill was cut $27,503 by the home mortgage interest deduction and $5,660 by charitable contributions. Uhruh said they deducted an additional $4,947 for miscellaneous items including non-reimbursed Washington living expenses for members of Congress; professional dues and expenses including the Rhode Island and D.C. bar associations and the Council on Foreign Relations; tax preparation fees; and investment advisory fees.

Progressive favorite U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is coming to Rhode Island later this month to raise money for the re-election campaign of her fellow Democrat Jack Reed.

Warren will be the special guest at a fundraiser on April 29 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Rotunda Room at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence, according to an invitation sent Monday. Suggested contributions range from $100 for individuals to $1,000 for hosts.

The fundraiser sports an all-female host committee co-chaired by Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, Treasurer Gina Raimondo and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed. Maryellen Butke, Helena Foulkes, Sandra Whitehouse and Myrth York are among the hosts.

Warren and Reed have a bit of a mutual admiration society. Reed successfully pushed to get Warren, a vocal Wall Street critic, appointed to serve with him on the Senate Banking Committee, while Warren has praised his work on financial issues. Reed is up for re-election next year.

Warren defeated Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown just last November, but she’s already Massachusetts’ senior senator now that John Kerry has resigned to serve as President Obama’s secretary of state. Democratic Congressman Ed Markey is the frontrunner in the campaign to succeed Kerry.

(photo: Warren’s office)

President Obama isn’t getting any support from Rhode Island’s congressional delegation for his controversial proposal to trim future Social Security benefits.

All four Democrats – usually loyal defenders of the president – issued statements Wednesday criticizing Obama for his proposal to use a different measure of inflation, known as “chained CPI,” to calculate Social Security benefit increases, which would reduce payments over time compared with current law.

The harshest critique came from U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a leading liberal in the chamber. “The so-called ‘chained CPI’ proposal included in President Obama’s budget is nothing more than a benefit cut disguised behind technical jargon,” he declared.

Whitehouse said he thinks the way Social Security currently calculates inflation already “shortchanges” senior citizens and should be changed to increase benefits – the exact opposite of Obama’s proposal. “I made a promise to the people of Rhode Island that I would always oppose cuts to Social Security, and I’m going to keep that promise,” Whitehouse said.

(more…)

U.S. Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse were among the 79 senators who voted Thursday night to get rid of a tax on sales of medical devices passed in 2010 to help fund President Obama’s health reform law.

The two Rhode Island senators joined 31 of their fellow Democrats and all 45 Republicans in voting to repeal the 2.3% excise tax on medical devices, which took effect Jan. 1. Getting rid of it would cost the federal government $29 billion from 2013 to 2022, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning Washington think-tank that opposed repealing it.

Whitehouse and another stalwart liberal, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, were among those who sided with the device industry on the repeal measure, which was introduced by Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah and has been the subject of a heavy lobbying effort.

Stephen Lane, chairman and chief venture officer of the Providence-based medical-device firm Ximedica, said at a manufacturing forum last year co-hosted by Congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin that the tax was causing his industry to move production to Asia. Cicilline and Langevin voted to keep the tax, and Cicilline clashed over the question with his Republican opponent Brendan Doherty in a WPRI 12 debate last fall.

Time for Jack Reed to shine up his gavel.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin announced Thursday evening he won’t run for another term in 2014, ending months of speculation about the 78-year-old Democrat’s future.

Levin’s retirement means the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee will be vacant in 2015 if his party retains control of the Senate, setting up the panel’s No. 2 Democrat – Reed – to take over as its leader.

Reed is presently the second-ranking Democrat on another committee that’s set to lose its chairman: Senate Banking, whose leader Tim Johnson of South Dakota is also expected to retire next year. But people close to Reed have long made clear he’ll take the more prestigious Armed Services post if forced to choose.

(more…)

​By Ted Nesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – More than half of Rhode Island voters support allowing same-sex marriage in the state, while most opponents of the idea say it conflicts with their religious beliefs, according to a new poll released Thursday by Brown University.

The poll also found Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s approval rating is a dismal 26%. ”Lincoln Chafee still has not been able to move his numbers after over two years as governor,” WPRI 12 political analyst Joe Fleming said.

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Jack Reed was not a fan of John Walsh, the Republican who was the last Comptroller of the Currency. But he’s getting along well with Thomas Curry, who took over in April, Kate Davidson reports for Politico:

Curry has acknowledged past mistakes, moved quickly to adopt lawmakers’ recommendations and brought in new blood with liberal bona fides at the upper levels of the agency.

By all accounts, his efforts are soothing tensions with some of the agency’s toughest critics. …

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who had called for the ouster of Curry’s predecessor, John Walsh, said Curry has “taken a lot of very positive steps” to improve the agency.

“I think he’s balanced, and I think he’s fair,” Reed said.

• Related: Reed giving up Senate Banking subcommittee to keep 2 others (Feb. 6)

Numbers guru Nate Silver says no senator is safer than Jack Reed heading into the 2014 elections.

“Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat, is quite popular in Rhode Island, one of the bluest states in the country, and this should be Democrats’ safest Senate race next year,” Silver wrote Wednesday in a FiveThirtyEight post analyzing whether the GOP can win back the Senate.

Silver gives Republicans a razor-thin 1% chance of defeating Reed on Nov. 4, 2014, even slimmer odds than their 3% chance of victory in New Mexico or 5% chances in Delaware, Hawaii, Virginia and Illinois.

Silver’s forecast shouldn’t be a surprise: the last Republican to win a U.S. Senate race in Rhode Island was Lincoln Chafee in 2000, following his father John’s four terms – and the last non-Chafee Republican to win was Jesse H. Metcalf back in 1930, when Herbert Hoover was president. (Metcalf was ousted in 1936.)

(more…)

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed will get an early start to his 2014 re-election campaign with an all-star fundraiser later this month.

The reception organized by Reed’s longtime finance chief, Julie Andrews (not that one), will be held Sunday, Feb. 24 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Garden Room of the Providence Biltmore Hotel. Suggested contributions are $100 to $1,000. Invitations to the event went out last week.

Reed, who isn’t on the ballot until next November, is taking the same approach as his colleague U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who kicked off his own re-election bid with a January 2011 event in the same location.

The fundraiser’s co-chairs are Reed’s three colleagues in Rhode Island’s congressional delegation: Whitehouse and Congressmen Jim Langevin and David Cicilline. The event also boasts a huge host committee that includes all five of the state’s general officers plus House Speaker Gordon Fox, Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed and six Democratic mayors. (See the full list after the jump.)

Three potential rivals for governor are all on Reed’s host committee – independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and Treasurer Gina Raimondo – though the one Democratic candidate who’s actually announced so far, former Auditor General Ernie Almonte, is not.

Reed’s campaign had $1.9 million on hand as of Dec. 31, a spokesman said. A Public Policy Polling survey last month showed Reed with a 29-point point lead over Republican Brendan Doherty, his closest competitor in a set of hypothetical contests. He was first elected to the Senate in 1996.

(more…)

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed will give up his chairmanship of a finance-focused subcommittee to comply with Senate Democrats’ rule barring any member from having more than two coveted committee gavels, WPRI.com has learned.

Reed’s office said he’ll remain on the Senate Banking Committee but will no longer chair its Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment, which he’s led since Democrats took control of the Senate in 2007.

Reed was one of the few senators who chaired three subcommittees, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently moved to enforce a caucus rule that limits Democratic senators to two. Reed opted to give up his gavel on the banking panel in order to remain chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment.

“Leading an Appropriations panel and the Seapower subcommittee are vital to delivering for Rhode Island,” Reed told WPRI.com in a statement. “My service on the Appropriations Committee offers broad opportunities to secure federal funding for our state and my work on the Seapower subcommittee allows me to help Rhode Island’s defense industry, which is important to our local economy and our national defense.”

(more…)

Rhode Island Republicans aren’t alone in their conundrum.

The state party just took another drubbing in a big election year, managing to lose a bunch of its few General Assembly seats and striking out against a deeply tarnished incumbent congressman. Their compatriots in places like Massachusetts, California and Washington can sympathize.

The big question is, what now?

Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, one of the most prominent Republicans in the state (and someone who actually wins elections), said during an RIPR panel interview Thursday that as 2014 approaches he’s keeping in close touch with Cranston Mayor Allan Fung and former congressional hopeful Brendan Doherty, an attempt to coordinate their efforts and come up with a viable slate of candidates.

(more…)

​By Ted Nesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – The U.S. remains on track to withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and the relationship between American and Pakistani leaders is improving, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed told WPRI.com on Thursday after returning from a visit to the troubled region.

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• Related: Senator Reed joins Levin for 14th trip to Afghanistan (Jan. 4)

​By Ted Nesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Gov. Lincoln Chafee is praising President Obama’s decision to nominate his former colleague Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. defense secretary, joining U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and other Democrats in backing the pick.

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​By Ted Nesi

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WPRI) – U.S. Sen. Jack Reed left Washington in secret on Thursday for an official visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan, WPRI.com has learned.

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By ​Ted Nesi

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WPRI) – U.S. Sen. Jack Reed is still frustrated that President Obama didn’t push harder to include in this week’s fiscal cliff deal the entire tax increase he backed on the campaign trail, and is already ringing alarm bells another potential fiscal crisis later this winter.

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​By Ted Nesi​

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WPRI) – They didn’t love it, but in the end all four Democrats in Rhode Island’s congressional delegation stood by President Obama and voted for this week’s “fiscal cliff” compromise, once again standing with their party’s leadership during a major confrontation.

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U.S. Sen. Jack Reed says he hasn’t made up his mind yet about whether to support a push by some of his colleagues to change the Senate’s filibuster rules to make it harder for Republicans to block legislation.

“I haven’t made a conclusion,” Reed told WPRI 12′s Tim White last week. “I am looking very carefully.”

“I am – as I have had to do with everything – thinking very carefully about what we’re doing so that I can make the best possible decision on behalf of all Rhode Islanders and indeed, when it comes to procedures in the Senate, for the country at large,” Reed said. “Not just for the moment, but for the future of the country.”

(more…)

By Tim White

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – In his first interview since last week’s tragic shootings in Newtown, Conn., U.S. Sen. Jack Reed joined President Obama and other Democrats in calling for a new look at the nation’s gun laws.

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The U.S. Senate’s biannual committee shuffle is over, and Rhode Island’s two senators are staying put.

Jack Reed will continue to serve on the same three committees when the new session starts in January, and Sheldon Whitehouse will continue to serve on the same five, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Wednesday.

Seniority is the coin of the realm in the U.S. Senate, and Rhode Island’s senators continue to move up the ladder. Reed ranked 33rd overall during the current Congress, and Whitehouse ranked 67th – up from 99th when he was first sworn in almost six years ago.

Reed is on fewer committees than other lawmakers because his three assignments are coveted ones: the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Banking Committee.

(more…)

Scott Patterson reports for The Wall Street Journal:

Executives from the two biggest U.S. stock exchanges are set to testify before the Senate Banking Committee alongside a pair of top officials from so-called dark pools, or private venues that allow investors and traders to swap stocks off [major stock] exchanges. The Dec. 18 hearing, chaired by Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, will focus on whether an increase in off-exchange trading has had a negative effect on the quality of the market, according to people familiar with the matter.

Overall, about one-third of all stock trading, including those in which brokers internally match investors’ orders, takes place away from exchanges, experts say. …

Mr. Reed plans to hold another hearing early in 2013 that is expected to focus on so-called internalization, in which brokerages trade against the orders of retail investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

Reed, who chairs the Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment, has made computerized trading a major policy focus of his panel’s work, getting attention after the botched Facebook IPO [pdf].

Mr. Smith doing his thing

A growing number of U.S. Senate Democrats including Sheldon Whitehouse are pushing hard for their caucus to approve changes to the filibuster early next year that would make it harder for Republicans to block legislation. But Whitehouse’s senior colleague, Jack Reed, still doesn’t sound convinced in this story by The Hill’s Alexander Bolton:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could be short on votes he needs to force changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules, as nine Democratic senators sit on the fence about the proposed reforms. …

Two other senior Democrats, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (Mont.) and Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), have yet to be persuaded. …

“I’m going to work my way through it,” said Reed. “It’s all part of the idea of how you effect change.

“I’m looking at everything,” he said.

Local observers probably won’t be surprised by this. While Reed sounded frustrated about Republicans’ heavy filibustering on “Newsmakers” in late 2010, he didn’t side with Whitehouse’s allies on the actual vote to change the rules two months later. This was my take at the time:

Some of the split can be chalked up to temperament; Reed is a cautious elder statesman type, and though a loyal Democrat, he’s not the most vocal partisan. Whitehouse, on the other hand, is a proud, loud liberal who’s glad to call out the other side.

However, their disagreement may also have something to do with when the two men joined the Senate.

Reed was elected in 1996 after serving in the House, and thus spent almost his entire first decade as a senator in the minority. (Democrats briefly controlled the chamber from mid-2001 through 2002.) He has a clear memory of what it was like to be out of power for an extended period of time, and what it meant to Senate Democrats to have the filibuster available to block Republican initiatives.

Whitehouse was elected in 2006 on a tidal wave of hostility toward the Bush administration, and unlike Reed, he has never served in the minority. So Whitehouse has only known the the frustration of watching Republicans block Democratic initiatives that had the support of a majority of senators, particularly over the last two years. He’s also served in an era when fewer senators cared about the chamber as an institution.

• Related: Reed, Whitehouse split on limiting the filibuster (Jan. 28, 2011)

(photo: Wikipedia)

It’s a testament to the high regard in which Washington apparently holds Rhode Island’s two U.S. senators, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, that their names are constantly being floated for high-level Obama administration posts. Just in the past few days there have been suggestions the president could name Reed either defense secretary or CIA director, or Whitehouse attorney general.

It’s extremely unlikely any of that will actually come to pass, because both Reed and Whitehouse really, really like their current jobs and probably can keep them for decades. Why take a cabinet post for a comparatively short time when senator-for-life is an option?

However, one of the arguments against their appointments that’s being floated is incorrect. Here’s Politico:

The problem with pulling [Jack] Reed from the Senate is that the state’s governor is a political independent who could appoint a replacement not as friendly to Obama’s second-term agenda.

Apart from the fact that it’s unlikely Obama campaign co-chair Lincoln Chafee would appoint somebody at odds with the president, Rhode Island governors no longer have the legal power to appoint anyone thanks to a 2010 law enacted by the General Assembly over Governor Carcieri’s veto:

The governor will no longer have the sole power to appoint a replacement if one of Rhode Island’s U.S. senators is unable to complete his or her term, under legislation approved by the General Assembly today over the governor’s veto.

The legislation sponsored by Sen. Paul V. Jabour and Rep. Chris Fierro requires a special election to choose a successor for any U.S. senator from Rhode Island who steps down, dies or is removed from office before the end of his or her term.

The move would eliminate the current process in which the governor appoints a replacement of his or her own choosing to serve on an interim basis until the next scheduled general election. …

The bill (2009-H 5094, 2009-S 0201), which is effective immediately, requires that a special election be held to fill U.S. Senate vacancies, unless such a vacancy occurs after July 1 of an election year. In that case, the vacancy would be filled during the regular general electoral cycle.

Special elections aren’t slam dunks for the dominant party, though, as Republican Scott Brown proved in Massachusetts the same month Rhode Island enacted its Senate vacancy law.

There’s a debate brewing about whether Democrats will put newly elected Massachusetts U.S. Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren on the Senate Banking Committee. The argument in favor: Warren knows a lot about the finance industry. The argument against: the finance industry despises her.

Now the Banking Committee’s No. 2 Democrat – and its likely future chairman – Jack Reed is weighing in “strongly” as a proponent of having Warren join the panel, George Zornick reports for The Nation:

“I can’t think of anybody that’s come to the Senate with thirty years of detailed knowledge of the industry from the perspective of teaching at law school and doing many other things, and then serving in the drafting of significant aspects of Dodd-Frank from the administration standpoint. So she comes prepared,” he said. “It’s really an abundance of intellectual riches.”

Reed said this suggested Warren would not be susceptible to strong lobbying efforts from the financial services industry. “In some respects it’s better to be dealing with someone who is knowledgeable than someone who does not have that kind of depth of knowledge, and might be swayed not by the facts and substance but simply by the last person to see them,” he said.

For now Reed is still the No. 2 on Banking, as South Dakota U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson retains the chairmanship. Reed says they’ll probably tackle Fannie and Freddie, Dodd-Frank, the Volcker Rule, clearinghouses, derivatives and the Financial Services Oversight Council next year.