WSJ: GOP Effort to Overturn Arbitration Rule at Risk From Republican Defectors

Here.  Excerpt:

[S]upport [to overturn the rule] in the Senate is uncertain. No Democrats are likely to back the effort, and Republicans, with their slim majority, can’t afford to lose more than two GOP votes. Several Republican senators have expressed reservations about voting to overturn the regulation, worried they may be portrayed as siding with banks and against consumers.Analysts with Compass Point Research & Trading LLC and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods have put the odds of the rule remaining in place at over 50%.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) in an interview said he opposed the resolution, saying arbitration is “a windfall for the companies in terms of how you settle their cheating.”

“You’ve had banks and credit-card companies nickel-and-diming consumers, and one of the things that makes them think twice is the idea of a massive lawsuit,” Mr. Graham said. “Nobody is going to get a lawyer over a $10 overcharge, but when you overcharge millions of people $10, the bank or the credit-card company makes out like a bandit” in arbitration.

Other Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Kennedy of Louisiana, have said they are undecided. And Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) may be unavailable to vote as he undergoes treatment for brain cancer.

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