By now you’ve likely already heard that the Senate finally passed a bill today that would legalize investment crowdfunding. This has been adequately summed up all over the web, but there’s a lot of confusion about what the final bill actually says, with all the amendments, amendments to amendments, and so on. We want to try to untangle that for you a bit, so you can actually read the language for yourself.
Check out this link: http://www.gpo.
On that page, the Merkley amendment, which was passed today, starts at SA 1884.
Its not entirely clear that this was the exact text that was actually adopted – that’s our best educated guess, but as you can see from this next link, its all been a confusing mess. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:sp1884:. Yes, there were seven amendments to the amendment.
A confirmed text of the final bill as passed by the Senate will be available in the coming days. You’ll be able to find that here once its up: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php. It will be designated as “Passed in Senate” or similar.
Finally, note that this may not be the final, final bill. Rather, the amended bill must now go back to the House of Representatives for a vote, since it differs from the original bill passed by the House. Or, alternatively, the House and the Senate may go to conference to iron out the differences. But either way, the point is, there’s still one more bit of reconciliation to go.
But, that said, it’s looking pretty near certain that when the dust settles and the sausage-making procedure is complete, we’re going to have an investment crowdfunding law! Exciting stuff.
All will be revealed very soon at least and whatever the exact details of the final bill are (or will be) it’s exciting to know that we are now just inches away from Obama signing the JOBS act and making it official. Looking forward to seeing what happens in the days to come.