Senator Warner spoke on the Senate floor this afternoon and urged his colleagues to vote in favor of moving forward to debate and amend Wall Street reform legislation.

Senator Warner recounted the months of bipartisan collaboration and countless hearings that went into the proposal, and urged his colleagues to "get through the procedural wrangling" in order to "set financial rules of the road that will last not just for the next Congressional session, but for decades to come."

“In the 15 months that I have had the honor of serving in this body, I have not seen any piece of legislation that anywhere approaches the type of bipartisan input, discussion, and ongoing dialogue, that Chairman Dodd’s bill has. …

"The products that we developed that are critical parts of this legislation are bipartisan in nature, bipartisan in ideas, and find that common ground that has been so absent in many of the previous debates we’ve had over the last 15 months."

UPDATE: Senator Warner gave the following remarks after the Senate voted against the motion to open up debate on the financial reform proposal:

"Unlike many of my colleagues, I get to go home to Virginia. If I run into a Virginian and explain why we're not on the bill, I don't know what to tell them. ... I don't know if maybe there was some procedural shenanigans, but I hope [my colleagues] can come back later tonight or first thing tomorrow and we can move to this bill, talk about it, put forward those amendments."