No House bailout vote unless passage certain

Thu Oct 2, 2008 2:52pm EDT
 
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that she would not schedule a vote on a $700 billion financial bailout bill unless she had enough votes for passage.

"We're not going to take a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes. I'm optimistic that we will take a bill to the floor," Pelosi, a California Democrat, told reporters.

"We want to see if we still have the 141 (Democratic) votes that we had before and that seems to be coming in pretty well," she said.

On Monday, the House rejected a bailout bill, which triggered a record 778-point drop in the U.S. stock market. The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a bailout bill after adding a number of tax breaks to attract more support.

(Editing by Richard Chang)

 

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