The Two-Income Trap - Elizabeth Warren [81]
What does bankruptcy have to do with abortion? In Washington, a great deal. Over the past several years, pro-choice groups had scored significant court victories against a few prominent abortion clinic protesters by obtaining money judgments against them, only to see those victories turn to dust when the protesters declared bankruptcy and discharged their debts.101 In a strange twist of politics, the credit industry’s version of the bankruptcy bill had been supported by Senator Charles Schumer, of New York, who had garnered strong support among women’s groups for his pro-choice politics. Ever responsive to his constituents, Senator Schumer inserted a provision into the bankruptcy bill that would make it more difficult for abortion clinic protesters to discharge judgments entered against them if they were sued for their protest activities, much in the same way drunk drivers and embezzlers cannot use bankruptcy to discharge judgments against themselves. Eager to appeal to women voters, the Senate had accepted the amendment in 2001. But in 2002, when the bankruptcy bill went back to the House with the abortion amendment in it, a coalition of right-to-life representatives refused to go along. They brought the bill to a standstill.
Desperate to get the bill passed, the banking lobby went back to the Senate, pressuring Senator Schumer to remove the controversial abortion provision. The industry ran attack ads against him in his home state, demanding that he support the bankruptcy bill—and claiming that he was costing every American family $550 a year. 102 (The attack on Senator Schumer was particularly ironic, since he had received more campaign contributions from the credit industry than any other Senator, just nosing out fellow New Yorker Hillary Clinton. 103) But by this point, the pro-choice women’s groups were also mobilized, and they held firm, supporting Senator Schumer and threatening to withhold support from any elected official who moved to take the provision out of the bankruptcy bill. In one of those rare defining moments, Senator Schumer had to choose between big business and pro-choice women, both of whom had supported his campaign. He chose women, and the amendment remained in the bill.
Ultimately, two strange bedfellows—a small group of socially conservative Republicans and a handful of progressive Democrats—gathered enough momentum to defeat the bankruptcy bill against the best-financed lobbying campaign of the 107th Congress.
Reclaiming the Politics of the Family
The real victors on that strange day were the grassroots groups that successfully flexed their muscles against the most well-funded lobbying group in America, showing the world that even the credit industry can be defeated if key groups can be rallied against them. What was the key to action? It was not simply a matter of putting forth the facts. Congress had already impaneled a Bankruptcy Commission to write 1,100 pages of facts, which few even bothered to read. No, the real key was to match up the politics of financial distress with the interests of the rest of the country. The right-to-life organizations put a face on those who would be affected by the Schumer Amendment, showcasing stories of elderly grandmothers and churchgoing families who protest abortion as a matter of conscience. The pro-choice organizations put their own face on the issue, spotlighting violent abortion protesters who had found a loophole that let them get away with breaking the law.
There is a lesson here. To put sound economic policies on the political agenda, families also need to find a face. So long as they are “debtors” or “bankrupts,” their needs can be dismissed. Instead, they need to be seen as members of powerful constituencies, members of groups that command the respect