House and Senate Republicans are voicing reservations about the bill in light of allegations that Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher J. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, one of its architects, and Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, got cut-rate home loans through a VIP program at Countrywide, a leading subprime lender at the center of the mortgage meltdown.
Both said they neither sought nor knew about the special treatment. "This bill has come together in such a way as to raise questions all over this country that we need to answer before we move ahead," said Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican.
The Senate rejected, 70-11, the move by DeMint and Senator Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, to send the housing package back to Dodd's panel which would have essentially killed the measure.
The election-year bill, which could help hundreds of thousands of struggling homeowners, appeared to be drawing wide bipartisan backing.
The Senate overwhelmingly defeated two amendments by Senator Christopher S. Bond, a Missouri Republican, that would have derailed the measure. Both failed on margins large enough to override a promised veto, suggesting the plan could survive a showdown with President Bush.
Dodd and Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the senior banking panel Republican, said the veto threat was "disappointing," given their compromise plan includes several elements Bush has demanded, and said they hoped the White House would reconsider.
Michael Ortiz, a spokesman for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said, "It's baffling why the White House would oppose a bill that would help so many American families at risk of losing their homes on the same day hundreds of mortgage fraud arrests were announced."
