In what turned out to be a huge strategic error, Fannie and Freddie chose to fight legislation in the Senate Banking Committee that embodied the administration's minimum requirements, particularly the receivership provision, in the late spring of 2004. The companies called in their chits and managed to obtain solid Democratic opposition to the bill crafted by the committee's chairman, Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). The committee also watered down the receivership provision. The partisan nature of the vote to send the bill to the floor virtually assured that it would not be taken up in the Senate unless Fannie and Freddie relented in their opposition, and the administration opposed the committee bill because of the weakened receivership language. Administration spokesmen warned the companies that if they continued to oppose the bill in 2004 there would be a tougher version in 2005, but Fannie and Freddie would not budge. It may be that the GSEs were banking on the defeat of President George W. Bush and on the assumption that a Democratic president would abandon the effort to pass tougher regulation.