Senate to vote on bailout Wednesday

Both McCain and Obama will travel to Washington for the surprise bailout vote in the Senate after Monday’s explosive  failure in the House. Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell announced late on Tuesday a joint and bipartisan decision had been made to go through with some sort of bailout vote without passage in the House.

In a surprising development, Senate leaders Tuesday night announced a Wednesday evening vote on the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan rejected Monday in the House of Representatives. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced the agreement in a joint appearance on the Senate floor just after 7 p.m. Agreements are in place for a voting procedure and the vote itself is expected sometime after sundown, to respect the Jewish holiday, both leaders’ offices said.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (Ill.) will return to Washington for the vote.

The agreement came together after a daylong effort that involved as many as nine conversations between Reid and McConnell and their lieutenants, as well as calls back and forth from Capitol Hill to the White House. The stock market plunged 777 points after Monday’s 205-228 vote in the House, sending leaders from both parties scrambling on Tuesday to head off any more political and financial fallout. The bill is believed to enjoy a wide margin of support in the Senate, usually the more difficult of Congress’s two chambers for controversial legislation.

“It has been determined, in our judgment, this is the best thing to move forward,” Reid said. “This is good for the country.”

McConnell called the announcement “one of the finer moments in the Senate.”

“We have come together on a bipartisan [basis] and structured a way forward on an important rescue package for our country,” he said. ”This is an important accomplishment and a way forward to get a result that we need to achieve for the American people.”

Reid’s office said the final agreement came together very quickly late Tuesday.

Immediate questions: Will McCain be able to vote for the bailout ‘as is’? Does he and other Republicans wary of the measure try to work out last-minute negotiations on different Senate legislation? Will Obama make a determined effort to go across the aisle and make sure the bailout easily passes the Senate on Wednesday?

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