Financial reform dominated the U.S. Senate again this week as members debated and voted on dozens of amendments. One of the amendments that took some time on the floor was offered by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). It proposed to break up the government-sponsored enterprise we know as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

By Friday of this week, the Senate Majority leader hopes to conclude debate on the financial reform bill. This bill has been pending for more than 3 weeks and major legislation is getting backed-up due to the valuable floor time it is consuming. Passing financial reform out of the Senate this week will be a tough feat for the Senate Democrats, because more than 100 amendments remain to be considered.

The Senate spent the week debating the financial reform bill and overwhelmingly passed the Boxer amendment by a vote of 96 to 1.

The U.S. Senate will spend the entire week debating the major financial reform bill designed to create safeguards to avoid another financial disaster. The GOP fought a move to progress to this bill most of last week while senators worked behind the scenes to get some concessions before the bill became pending.

This week the Senate spent most of its time deciding whether the financial reform bill was ready for prime time on the Senate floor. The Senate GOP made several demands for concessions to alter or drop some large provisions contained in thebill.

For the second week in a row, Congress seemed to be doing very little in the light of day, in either the House or Senate chambers.

Tax day has come and gone and millions of Americans filed their tax returns, thereby complying with the April 15 annual deadline. However, deadlines seem to mean very little to the Democratic leadership in Congress.

The Senate worked late into the evening Thursday to wrap up spending $18.2 billion to pay for 60 more days of unemployment benefits and COBRA health benefits, and also to ensure doctors don't face a 21 percent cut in their reimbursement payments from the government. The price tag for the bill is being added to our debt, thanks primarily to the Democrats in Congress.

Congress returns this week from its two-week recess facing several key decisions. These decisions will affect the summer and fall sessions leading up to the highly anticipated November 2010 elections.

Congress is out for one more week on its spring recess, and presumably the members of Congress are enjoying some quality family and constituent time. During a recent press event, U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, R-FL vowed to sponsor and support legislation to repeal the federal health-care law and replace it with anti-health-care fraud legislation.