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Senate banking committee Chairman Chris Dodd proposed a legislation today that would freeze the interest rates on the existing balances of an estimated 700 million credit cards.

While Dodd’s camp maintains that the legislation reinforces the Congressman’s opinion that “more consumer protections were needed,” many critics see the proposal as another “political maneuver” by the lawmaker who is seeking reelection:

Mr. Dodd’s proposal seemed aimed at reconnecting the Connecticut Democrat with voters, many of whom have questioned his close ties to big banks after he was tied to a sweetheart loan scandal. The Senate ethics committee cleared him of violating any rules, although his poll numbers remain shaky.

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Senator Chris Dodd admitted that he was in fact involved in changing the language to the final version of the stimulus bill that some say protected AIG’s controversial bonuses. Without naming names, Dodd said yesterday that Treasury officials asked him to modify the bill to cap executive bonuses:

On Tuesday, Dodd said he agreed to makes changes in the final version of the federal stimulus bill. This represented an about-face in his explanation, only one day after he said that he was not a member of the conference committee that crafted the final compromise bill and pointed out the exception had not been in the bill as he drafted it.

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