By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats on Tuesday appeared to nail down the votes needed to pass a historic rewrite of U.S. financial regulation with backing from another Democrat and moved to set up a final vote by the end of the week.
Senator Ben Nelson. one of the Senate's most conservative Democrats, threw his support behind the bill, a day after raising concerns with how regulators might put the law into effect.
"We must rein in rash Wall Street behavior and appropriately regulate the financial services industries," Nelson said in a statement.
Earlier on Tuesday, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said he expected to bring up the bill later in the day, which would set the stage for a final vote by the end of the week.
Nelson's backing probably gives Democrats the 60 votes they need to clear an expected Republican procedural hurdle in the 100-seat chamber. That vote could happen on Thursday, with final passage soon after, Democratic aides said.
"If Nelson is a yes, we are in a good place," a senior Democratic aide said.
The House of Representatives has already approved the measure and Democrats are eager to send it to President Barack Obama to sign into law.
Final passage would give them an important legislative victory ahead of the November congressional elections.
The Dodd-Frank bill -- named for its chief authors, Senator Christopher Dodd and Representative Barney Frank -- would impose tough new restrictions on the financial industry in an effort to avoid a repeat of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Passage would allow Democrats to capitalize on public disgust with Wall Street, which sucked up hundreds of billions in bailout funds as the financial meltdown pushed the wider economy into a deep recession.
Reid and other congressional leaders were scheduled to meet with Obama later on Tuesday to discuss their legislative agenda.
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If Reid brings up the bill later in the day, that would likely set up a procedural vote on Thursday. Final passage could come immediately after, or by Friday at the latest, if that hurdle is cleared.
Reid could possibly pick up an additional vote from Republican Charles Grassley, who had backed an earlier version. However, Grassley is concerned with how the final bill is funded and has not yet decided how to vote, according to an aide.
If Reid cannot somehow find 60 votes this week, he could wait until next week, when West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin is expected to appoint a Democrat who backs the bill to fill the seat of the late Robert Byrd.
Most Republicans have firmly opposed the bill, painting it as an intrusive overreach that fails to address problems in the housing market that spurred the crisis.
But former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a Republican who struggled to contain the meltdown at its height in 2008, said his job would have been easier had the bill been in place, particularly a provision that would allow regulators to seize and dismantle troubled financial firms if they threaten the broader economy.
"We would have loved to have something like this for Lehman Brothers," Paulson told the New York Times, referring to the investment bank that roiled markets when it declared bankruptcy.
(Additional reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh, Thomas Ferraro and Donna Smith; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Leslie Adler)
