All eyes are on the reconciliation team as they meet and decide whether they're going to weaken or strengthen the Wall Street reform legislation. The New York Times reports:

Negotiators from the House and Senate gathered on Thursday to merge two bills representing the most comprehensive changes to financial regulation since the Depression, but the script they acted out was largely being written elsewhere...

Both sides called for avoiding a repeat of past mistakes. Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, recalled that she sat on a similar conference committee for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the milestone deregulation legislation that ended Glass-Steagall.

“I feared deregulation would have serious negative consequences,” Ms. Waters said. “I voted no. I was right.”

As we noted yesterday, the lobbyists are stepping up their efforts during reconciliation. We must step up ours as well. Otherwise, behind the scenes, the lobbyists will rule.