The Senate continued with its second full week of consideration of the Regulatory Reform Bill, formally known as S. 3217, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010, by debating and voting on a handful of amendments. This coming week looms large as Democrats, led by Senate Leader Harry Reid have indicated that they intend to conclude the debate, while Republicans will fight to keep the debate going, at least for another week. With no votes scheduled for Monday and Friday of the week, it seems unlikely that the Senate will be able to deal with the nearly hundred or so amendments that have been filed. Because many of these have been authored by Democrats, and they make the bill even more liberal, chances are good that Leader Reid will relent and allow the debate to continue into the last week of May. This would also defuse any allegations that Democrats didn’t allow Republicans the chance to use regular order during the debate, a complaint that resonated with the public during consideration of Health Care.

House Leadership is still publicly calling for a conference, though privately they are request input from members now in the event that a conference doesn’t materialize. It would seem, given the significant public support for attacking Wall Street, that Democrats would want a televised conference, as Chairman Frank has indicated his preference for this as way to continue to hold the Republican’s feet to the fire as protectors of Wall Street’s interests. That said, conference or not, all indications appear to point to the President signing regulatory reform by July 4th.