House Democrats are taking the reins back from Republicans on the issue of televising House-Senate conference meetings.

Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on Tuesday sent a letter to C-SPAN Chairman Brian Lamb urging him to provide the necessary resources for broadcasting the public portions and voting by the conference committee on Wall Street reform legislation. C-SPAN is already televising Thursday’s opening day of the conference, the first to be made public in a long time.

“I believe it is vital that after the financial crisis of 2008, the American people are able to view the public proceedings,” Frank wrote.

House Republican leaders bashed Democrats earlier this year for not broadcasting conference negotiations on health care reform.

“Unfortunately, the President, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid now intend to shut out the American people at the most critical hour by skipping a bipartisan conference committee and hammering out a final health care bill in secret,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) wrote to Lamb in January.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) maintained at the time that the debate on health care reform was already more open than it had been for any other legislation.