Schumer Could Derail Contentious Bankruptcy Law

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2207

Schumer Could Derail Contentious Bankruptcy Law

Run Date: 03/04/05
By Allison Stevens
WeNews correspondent

Women's activists say that a new bankruptcy law--now at a critical juncture in the Senate--robs many women of a crucial protection from job loss and medical calamity and makes it harder to collect child-support payments.

Washington, D.C. (WOMENSENEWS)--The Senate is poised to vote next week on a controversial amendment to a proposed bankruptcy law that is related to abortion rights. If the amendment is voted down, the underlying bankruptcy bill--intended to make it harder for debtors, the majority of whom are women, to file for bankruptcy--will have its best chance in nearly a decade of becoming law.

The proposed bankruptcy law revisions got a quick stamp of approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February with 12 votes, three cast by Democrats, and faces little resistance in the House. The revisions also have President Bush's support.
That fills many women's rights activists with dread.

"Women who file for bankruptcy, like women generally, have less income and more family responsibilities," said Joan Entmacher, a lawyer at the National Women's Law Center, a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C. "So when something goes wrong . . . they're more likely to fall over the edge."

In 2003, more than 1 million women and children sought shelter under the bankruptcy code, according to Entmacher; 9 out of 10 women who filed did so because of the loss of a job, a medical emergency or family breakup, or a combination of one or more of those factors, not because they want to avoid paying the price for shopping sprees, Entmacher said. Complete figures for 2004 are not yet available.
Critics of the revisions also charge that the if the proposals become law it would become harder for women to collect alimony and child support.

continued

the dems are it.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/liberaltshirts.htm

PS - let us trade the bankruptcy law revision for credit card company constraints...since CC companies use many unethical but legal tactics.

Where've you been? There's been post after post about Dems opposing this bill and introducing amendments to make it less punitive. I'm so sick of people bashing Dems when they obviously haven't been paying attention at all.

who is confusedly republican in outlook, even though she is intelligent and otherwise sane.

I mentioned the bankruptcy atrocity bill to her and she went into an anecdotal shpiell about how builders in her town routinely go corporate belly-under while living in their mansions and driving their escalades around town, and then restart their operations under new names so of course it would be a good thing to crack down on that nonsense.

"They aren't touching corporate bankruptcy", I said, "they wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole, the bill is only about personal bankruptcy." I continued to quote her the numbers on the percentage of personal bankruptcies are middle class working families caught in a prolonged medical crisis or similar uncontainable event, and how the proposed bill would not allow these families to get out from under this sort of debt. How the proportion of personal cases that were simply irresponsible behavior was very small and how this bill did not distinguish and was essentially a give-away to the banks and credit card companies. She was obviously shaken. There really is hope in reaching the reachable, the confusedly republican, all the good working class people out there who drank the koolaid for various reasons but haven't quite rinsed all the grey matter down the drain.

We have to be willing to tackle the class issue head on. It is class warfare, and it always has been. The way we reach those reachable red-staters is not by pandering to their false gods, but by talking to their wallets and pocket books.

The assault on SS, the bankruptcy atrocity, and the assault on corporate liability are all class warfare issues, and the reason that the rethugs are trying to put them away this year is that the last thing they want is to have to deal with the blowback next year.

They're going to make this about abortion somehow and bash us over the head with it. And get it passed to boot. People are so damn stupid that it could actually work. "We need to make it harder to declare bankruptcy so that women won't be having abortions all the time" Where's the logic in that?!?!?! I'm sure the freepers and fundies will be able to make the connection.

One amendment, however, could serve as a so-called poison pill and derail the entire bill, as it has done in the past. The amendment, sponsored by New York Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer, would prohibit abortion clinic protesters and other demonstrators from filing for bankruptcy to evade court-ordered fines for illegal activities. The Schumer amendment has been adopted in previous years, prompting conservative lawmakers to allow similar bankruptcy legislation to die.


If the NO-CHOICE anti-woman protesters can't weasel out of their legal fines & damages via BK, the reeps won't vote for it. This tactic has killed the bill in the past.

Like the ones that would have given relief to seniors and veterans. THe 54 pukes will all vote against this and I'm willing to bet several Dems will break ranks and prevent this one from getting added on too.

I hope and pray I'm wrong but all of the ammendments that would have renderd this bill even a bit less breathtakingly harsh to debtors who are insolvent through no fault of their own have gone by the wayside.

petty, mean-spirited, aimed at the least
of us to keep profits going to credit card
companies.

Don't they have to vote it in or something? Did they bundle it with other amendments in the past?

Hmmmm this was suppose to be a reply to #3

who works in the bankruptcy court in Chicago who has told me the same kinds of things. He has seen Mothers go bankrupt trying to feed and clothe their children using credit cards.

He also told me that the vast majority of people who file for bankruptcy protection have no other choice. They are not all cheating the system.

The proposed changes to the laws we have now are going to hurt a lot of people.

It's hard to believe women can support this
administration on anything.

and this is true. All the law will do is force more people to use Chapter 13. Chapter 13s are a lot more paperwork, and very often people can't make the payments and the bankruptcy is dismissed without a discharge.

Chapter 13 works best when you can't pay your bills, but you have equity in a home, for example. They don't make you liquidate your home in the Chapter 13.

Look at this stuff...women make 73 cents to a dollar, discrimination
is still very alive and well as our Harvard Pres. proved...plus
we have "scientific studies" that are so shoddy and riddled with
false premises...almost identical to the "black studies" "proving"
blacks had lower IQ's than whites...(probably the same guys)...
"proving" women are inferior in mathematics and science (and why
so many women doctors & chemical engineers then)...

so now...let's make it impossible for women to not only get out of
debt and get a flesh start...while they try to raise a family
on less money than a man while the man isn't the primary caregiver of the children...

let's also make it harder for her to collect child support
and alimony as she cannot pay her bills while she takes care
of the children plus tries to find a good paying job.

!Y&*)$&*^

The Democrats can probably kill the bill by organizing a filibuster.

Will they?

Howard Dean as head of the Democratic Party can speak out loud and clear on this issue and organize 40 Senators to sustain a filibuster. He should try.

Will he?

Let see if he can threaten them with
more than one less appearance on Wolf Blitzer's
program.

Senators Bayh (D-IN)and Durbin (D-IL) to exempt active
military personnel from the provisions of this bill and
voted DOWN by the "support your troops" hypocrites of
the U.S. Senate?

i don't understand why they factor this into the equation at all. you cannot put child support (dunno about alimony - what's alimony, lol?) obligations in one's bankruptcy anyway.


btw, i wonder what they're going to attach surreptitiously to this bill, like they do all the rest? bet it will be a zinger!

snip-

The revisions affect women as debtors and also as ex-spouses of people who are debtors, added Travis Plunkett, legislative director at the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C. That is because, under the proposed revisions, parents with unpaid child support would need to compete with the debtors' credit card companies for the debtor's remaining assets. Moreover, the parents will not have the professional legal staffs that the credit card companies have access to.

thanks for the clarification.

...we're everywhere you want to be...and many places you don't want us to be...like in your kids' child support payments. Sorry you can't buy your kids clothes now. But that's okay, because we'll just offer them their own credit cards with a free t-shirt.

snip

One amendment, however, could serve as a so-called poison pill and derail the entire bill, as it has done in the past. The amendment, sponsored by New York Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer, would prohibit abortion clinic protesters and other demonstrators from filing for bankruptcy to evade court-ordered fines for illegal activities. The Schumer amendment has been adopted in previous years, prompting conservative lawmakers to allow similar bankruptcy legislation to die.

Schumer has told reporters in recent weeks that the outcome of the vote--expected next week--is uncertain but said he believes it will be close.

If the Schumer amendment fails, advocates such as Entmacher will be left hoping that their allies in the Senate will have made enough changes to the underlying bill to make it significantly different from the House version. This could lead to a stalemate between House and Senate negotiators in conference committee.

As a final recourse, they will look for a senator to step forward and lead a filibuster to block the bill.

"I always think there's a bankruptcy goddess who watches out for us," Entmacher said. "We're not giving up hope yet."

I think that would be a great "poison pill" amendment, don't you think?

Something that gives the children of same-sex parents the same rights as those of opposite-sex parents.

"The Children of Same-Sex Parents Bankruptcy Protection Pairity Amendment."

No Democrat should say no to protecting children, and no Republican would say yes to recognizing that gay people don't eat babies.

good advice...
can I add for the strong hearted: stop paying taxes.

With peak oil coming, people deserve to be free to start again.

Not be slaves to a bank.