Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has made threats off and on all year about keeping the chamber in session over a weekend to get its work done, but has rarely carried them out.

Now it looks like he’ll get the chance, as the Senate made plans to vote Saturday to clear a landmark housing bill (HR 3221) for President Bush’s signature.

Passage is all but certain, but at least one conservative Republican is trying to force Reid to run out the legislative clock.

Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina wants to offer an amendment that would ban lobbying and other political activity by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which would get a federal bailout under the legislation if their finances deteriorate. But Reid, D‑Nev., is moving to end debate on the measure and has “filled the amendment tree,” thereby preventing Republicans from offering their own amendments.

“If the American taxpayers put their money on the line to back up these private companies, then these private companies should no longer be able to spend millions of dollars lobbying members of Congress,” DeMint said.

The cloture vote is expected Friday, and if the full 30 hours of post-cloture time is used, a final vote will likely be held sometime Saturday afternoon. While DeMint can slow the bill’s progress, he is unlikely to derail it. The bill has broad bipartisan support.

Senate Democrats, though, were full of sarcasm about his tactics, noting that earlier this month he forced a delay on a vote on President Bush’s global AIDS initiative (S 2731), inconveniencing some members with a late Friday roll call, and then didn’t show up for the vote.

“We want to thank him, and we hope he’s going to be there,” Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., said.

The House passed the bill Wednesday, after the White House dropped an earlier veto threat — which centered on a $3.9 billion grant program for buying foreclosed homes that the bill includes — and urged Congress to clear it quickly.

Bush is now pushing for the bill, in part, because creating a lifeline for Fannie and Freddie was the administration’s idea, championed by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and added to the bill this week. But many of the White House’s usual allies in the House GOP jumped ship and voted against the bill, warning that taxpayers could end up footing the bill for souring mortgages and a bailout of the companies.

In a last-ditch effort Thursday, a group of House Republicans asked Bush to reconsider his decision not to veto the bill — even as the White House continued to say it very much wants to see it on his desk.

Fourteen GOP members of the House Financial Services Committee sent a letter to Bush noting that 149 of the 152 House members who voted against the bill were Republicans.

“Should you exercise your veto, the House vote yesterday indicates we have sufficient votes to sustain it. This could result in revised legislation that eliminates some, if not all, of the extraneous and wasteful provisions, leaving a bill that could gain broad bipartisan support,” the letter said.

But earlier in the day, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the bill was “too important to have a prolonged veto fight.”

Paulson, she noted, has said the legislation is necessary in order to “stabilize the markets and provide confidence to the markets, which would not only help homeowners, but also the overall economy.

Historically, Fannie and Freddie have both enjoyed considerable influence on Capitol Hill. With the Treasury stepping in to explicitly back the companies, DeMint thinks their influence should be curbed.

Reid was asked if he had reached out to DeMint to resolve his concerns.

“Reach out to him for what?” Reid responded. “This game is pretty clear — they want us to amend this and send it back to the House and start over again.”

The housing package includes several major pieces of legislation aimed at stabilizing the battered housing market, including new authority the Treasury Department could use to buy stock and extend credit to Fannie and Freddie. Wall Street investors have dumped shares of the two companies in recent weeks, driving down their stock price and raising worries about their long-term financial health.

The bill also includes a new regulator for Fannie and Freddie; an overhaul of the Federal Housing Administration, an agency that insures mortgages; an FHA-led program to help borrowers refinance mortgages they at present can’t afford; and $15.1 billion in tax breaks.