WASHINGTON – The Senate passed legislation yesterday that will make it harder for Americans to rid themselves of debt by filing for bankruptcy.

The House is expected to pass the measure next month, delivering to President Bush a second victory this year on pro-business legislation he had sought.

The vote was 74-25 to approve the most thorough overhaul of bankruptcy laws in a quarter-century.

“The short answer is fairness,” declared Senator Hatch, a Utah Republican. “Those who can pay their bills should pay their bills. That’s the American way.”

Congressional and industry backers of the legislation have been pushing for it for eight years but it repeatedly got stalled. This year, with Republican majorities increased in both the House and Senate in last November’s elections, the bill’s fortunes reversed.

Before the vote and in Senate deliberations over much of the last 10 days, majority Republicans knocked down Democratic attempts to ease the impact of the legislation on people facing huge debts they cannot pay down, including single parents, the unemployed, and the ill.

The Senate instead handed Wall Street investment firms a bonus, defeating a Democratic amendment that would have restricted their ability to work for companies both before and after those companies file for bankruptcy.

Senators acted against the advice of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson, who said such a restriction was needed to build up investor confidence shaken by Enron, WorldCom, and other corporate scandals.

For two straight days, Democratic opponents tried to soften the bill’s impact on single parents and other groups, and to restrict credit industry practices that lawmakers said especially hurt the poor.

Critics said the bill would remove a safety net for those who have lost their jobs or face big medical bills.

“It will have a real impact on real people all over this country,” said Senator Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat.

Supporters of the bill said bankruptcy often was the last refuge of gamblers, impulsive shoppers, divorced or separated fathers avoiding child support, and multimillionaires – often celebrities – who buy mansions in states with liberal homestead exemptions to shelter assets from creditors.

Somewhere between 3,675 and 210,000 people annually – from 3.5% to 20% of those who currently dissolve their debts in bankruptcy – would be disqualified from doing so under the legislation, according to American Bankruptcy Institute estimates.