In the last few days a couple high profile diaries have excoriated Hillary Clinton for flipping her opposition to bankruptcy reform in return for campaign contributions from big Wall Street Banks. For example A Window into Elizabeth Warren's View of Hillary's Record on Womens issues tells a very compelling story about how then First Lady Hillary asked to meet with Elizabeth Warren to talk about concerns Warren had voiced about the potential impact of the 1998 Bankruptcy bill on child and spousal support payments. In an included video segment Warren describes how quickly Hillary grasped the importance of the issue and vowed to stop the bill - which she did.
So far it speaks positively to Hillary's command of issues and commitment to women and children, but then the story turns. In the diarist's words,
"Unfortunately for single mothers, the credit card industry was not going to take the defeat sitting down. Just a few years later almost the exact same bill sprouted again. This time, Hillary Clinton was a senator from New York, and unfortunately for single mothers, like Dick Cheney during the Vietnam war, Ms. Clinton had other priorities. Instead her focus in 2004 and 2005 was on the financial industry that made up her largest donors in her successful campaign for senate. She went against most of her Democratic colleagues and (supported) the bankruptcy bill which is now law.
Commenters were quick to grasp the implication. From one,
Banks 1, Women 0 (42+ / 0) That, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with electing another Oligarch. I DO believe Hillary is strong on women's issues. She's just stronger on banker issues.
After looking at this issue carefully I think these diaries have missed the true depth of Clinton's perfidy, and even more damning, the breathtaking incompetence with which she betrayed all who were counting on her.
For example Clinton takes credit for killing the bill in 1998 and 2001 (and Warren says she deserves it), but even then she was pandering to the banks and refusing to take a clear stand. While at Hillary's urging Clinton boldly vetoed the 1998 bill in a clear statement that the any reform had to protect women and children, in order to avoid antagonizing Hillary's Wall street bankers he simply refused to sign the 2000 bill allowing it to expire unsigned at the end of his term. After all she had taken all that money in the 2000 election and had plans to run in 2008. In an ironic twist by not actually vetoing the the legislation Clinton denied supporters an opportunity to overturn his veto (which they had enough support to accomplish). Thus Clinton not only sold out women and children by refusing to cleanly veto the bill in an obvious sop to big money supporters, but undermined the democratic process and screwed her contributors in the process. Truly her depravity and incompetence knows no bounds.
If that was awful, what she did in 2001 is unforgivable. Only months after she had inadvertently derailed the legislation in her naive attempt to curry favor with her corporate overlords, the bankruptcy legislation came up again in the Senate where she had recently been seated with the overwhelming support of the big banks that wanted nothing more than to pass bankruptcy reform. Even knowing the devastating effect that the bill would have on women and children, Hillary voted for the Senate bill S420. Once again this was not just betrayal of all that she had stood for, but an astonishing example of Keystone Cop level incompetence. Hillary knew she would take heat for changing her position so she demanded some face saving fig leaf amendments to justify her vote. The bill managers agreed to change the bill to protect the child and spousal support payments that had so concerned Warren earlier and even allowed an amendment from Chuck Schumer to protect legal judgements for attacks on abortion providers. In a floor speech full of hypocritical grandstanding which closed the debate Hillary highlighted how she was voting for the bill only to acknowledge the cooperation on these changes, and continued to have real concerns about the bill.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I stand here today not in opposition to moving forward with the Bankruptcy Reform Act, but to send a clear message that I continue to have strong reservations about whether this bill is both balanced and responsible. I have long said that debtors that have the genuine capacity to repay some of their debt should be required to do so, but abuses by creditors need to be stopped.
I grew up with a father who never accepted any credit—never had a credit card in his life. He taught me the importance of always working hard and paying your debts. I believe every American should work hard to spend responsibly and to repay their debts, but I also know that some families are hit by unexpected hardships.
This bill should not have the effect of targeting our most vulnerable consumers—women who are left with little resources as their husbands who were the primary breadwinners leave the family; or families with no health insurance who are struck with financial hardship when one family member becomes critically ill; or another family who suddenly finds that the primary breadwinner is laid off with little employment opportunities available in the region.
These are not the families who need to be further stuck by hardship of bankruptcy reform that is inflexible or overly harsh on debtors.
I voted for the S. 420, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2001, because I believed and still do believe that there were some important protections added to the Senate bill, but I will absolutely not vote in favor of the final bankruptcy reform bill if it does not include at least these minimal protections for our most vulnerable consumers.
During the floor debate on S. 420, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2001, I worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to add additional protections for women and children. I worked hard to ensure that once bankruptcy is complete, we do more to ensure that single mothers can collect the child support they depend upon.
Senator HATCH and I passed an amendment to ensure that the holder of the claim, meaning the parent with cutody of the child, most often the mother, is informed by the bankruptcy trustee of his or her right to have the State child support agency collect the nondischargeable child support from the ex-spouse. I believe this change will help inform women of their rights to have the State help them in their claims to collect child support.
In addition, I was concerned about competing non-dischargeable debt so I worked hard with Senator BOXER to ensure that more credit card debt can be erased so that women who use their credit cards for food, clothing and medical expenses in the 90 days before bankruptcy do not have to litigate each and every one of these expenses for the first $750.
These are the most minimal of changes that I believe need to be in the final bill. I still do not believe that they go far enough. I believe that the final bill should protect child support full stop. I do not believe that child support should have to compete with any credit card debt. But it should certainly not retreat from these changes.
The cap on protected expenses should not be lowered to the House version of $250.
I also believe that the bill needs to include Senator SCHUMER’s amendment to ensure that any debts resulting from any act of violence, intimidation, or threat would be nondischargeable. It was a victory for the Senate to include this important amendment to ensure that those who are responsible for violence against women’s health clinics are held responsible for their actions. I do not believe we should retreat on this point.
Let me be clear. This bill should go further to protect consumers, but it should certainly not retreat from the consumer protections in the bill.
I will vote for cloture on this bill, but I believe that as we move to conference we need to continue to work to ensure that we continue to gain more balance between creditors and debtors.
She even had the gall to say that she wouldn't support the bill on final passage if the conference committee gave any ground on those protections. I'm not a lawyer but I read on the internet that none of these amendments made any difference and the bill that she voted for was exactly the same as the one she stopped a few months earlier, and the same as the 2005 bill which became law despite her opposition.
How shocked must she have been when the House refused to accept any of her amendments and the effort died in conference? Not only did her feeble attempts to cover up her total sell out fail to make the final bill, because of her incompetence and inability to work with House Republicans, the whole legislation foundered. Indeed Republican leadership found it so hard to reconcile the amendments demanded by Senate Democrats with hardliners in the House, that they gave up on Bankruptcy reform for 4 years, not bringing a bill to the floor until the 2004 election gave them enough votes to prevent floor amendments altogether.
There you have it. Not only did Clinton betray her passionate and deeply held belief that women and children had to be protected from any bankruptcy reform but she had such a pathetic grasp of the legislative process that her craven attempts to curry favor with her big contributors actually backfired and by sheer ironic coincidence prevented passage of the legislation for 5 full years despite supermajority support in both Houses of Congress.
I know, some of you will claim the Hillary is a manipulative politician who is willing to compromise her personal honor and reputation and thwart the clear democratically expressed will of the people just to protect innocent women and children, but I think we have had more than enough of that sort of ad hominem attack here lately and I refuse to attribute those sort of untoward motives to a woman who has a long and distinguished record of service to this country. Either way, we should ask, is this the kind of gross incompetence and subservience to special interests we are prepared to accept in our nominee?