Tester defends banking bill

Montana's senior senator Wednesday defended statements he made about the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

In a telephone press conference, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., responded to a story by the Associated Press that said past statements he made about Dodd-Frank's effect on smaller community banks were only "mostly true."

The 2010 Dodd-Frank bill was passed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 Great Recession in an attempt to regulate financial institutions that became "too big to fail."

Tester voted for Dodd-Frank when it passed the Senate in 2010 and was an origin...