With the sad passing of Sen. Robert Byrd, the longest serving member of Congress in U.S. history, the Democrats for now number 58 in the Senate (the Democratic governor of West Virginia will appoint someone in the near future, with a special election taking place in 2012, the same time as the next election was going to be held anyway). As it is tradition that the President pro temp of the Senate goes to the most senior member of the majority party, Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii was sworn in.

Since the Democrats lost a member, they had to reconvene conference negotiations on the Wall Street reform bill, removing a bank tax (meaning costs of the bill will now fall back on the taxpayers) to appease Sen. Scott Brown who is still uncommital on his vote, which will now not take place until next week.  The House of Representatives passed the final version, with Speaker Pelosi personally gavelling the vote to a close, as it represents the biggest financial reforms since the Great Depression.

And extension of jobless benefits passed in the House but died once again in the Senate (thanks to Republicans and Sen. Ben Nelson), meaning that the unemployed will continue to suffer through the 4th of July congressional recess. The House also passed a bill that broadens BP’s legal liability for the 11 workers who died in the oil rig explosion.

Gen. David Petraeus was quickly confirmed 99-0 to command the war effort in Afghanistan, replacing Gen. Stanley McChrystal whom was removed by Pres. Obama after controversial remarks to Rolling Stone but will be retiring with four stars. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings this week were decidedly uncontroversial and she is expected to be confirmed.

The Senate continued to work on the financial reform bill, passing several notable amendments including  one limiting the ability of Wall Street firms to shop around for favorable ratings from now-discredited credit rating agencies, one to audit the actions of the Federal Reserve, and one that would force credit card companies to charge businesses less for debit card transactions than for credit card payments., among others. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants to call for a cloture vote to end debate on Monday, but Republicans will try to thwart – as always.

Also, Republican Senator Murkowski of Alaska blocked a bill that would raise the liability caps for oil companies from $75 million to $10 billion in response to the damage caused by BP’s oil spill in the Gulf. And Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman also finally unveiled their delayed climate change/energy bill, but its prospects of passing may be only slightly better than that of immigration reform…

Meanwhile, Republicans in the House of Representatives derailed a technology bill by attaching an amendment that effectively eliminated some of the key initiatives in the technology bill while inserting language supporting the firing of government workers who view or download pornography on the job to make those opposed to the cuts vulnerale to attack ads claiming they supported pornography on the government’s dime. Democrats scuttled the measure for now.