Senators Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, introduced the main piece of the Volcker Rule - its limitations on proprietary trading - as an amendment to the broader Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation that was passed by the United States Senate on May 20, 2010.
Despite this vote, this proposal made it into the final legislation when the House-Senate conference committee passed a strengthened version of the rule that included the language prepared by Senators Merkley and Levin.