A Fighting Chance

It was Friday afternoon, April 17, 1998, not far from Boston Harbor, only a few miles and across the river from where I live. I was about to sit down with a man I’d never met, Senator Ted Kennedy. The senator’s brilliant young chief counsel, Melody Barnes, had heard me give a speech about bankruptcy. She thought I should meet her boss, so here I was.

A few minutes earlier, I had entered the lobby of the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, accompanied by Melissa Jacoby, my smart young chief counsel from the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. As we rode up to the twenty-fourth floor, I couldn’t help wondering what it must be like to work in a building named for your assassinated brother. Then, when I looked around the senator’s waiting room, I realized that he lived with a lot more than his brother’s name on the building. Hanging on the walls were family photos of the three brothers he had lost—John, Bobby, and Joe.

We were scheduled to meet with Senator Kennedy for only fifteen minutes, so I knew I needed to talk fast. But as soon as we were ushered into his office, the senator stood up, greeted me warmly, and swept me across the room to his windows. The views were amazing—the neighborhoods, the harbor, the ocean beyond. He wanted to show me where his grandparents had once lived or something—I didn’t quite catch it. But he was cheerful and enthusiastic, saying, “Right there—right there!” as he tapped hard on the glass. He pointed out other buildings and projects and noted how great it was that the harbor was now cleaned up.

I’m sure he had won over a zillion visitors with his good humor and plain old Irish charm. But when he laughed, he seemed to take genuine delight in looking out the window at this place he loved.

Finally we settled in, and the senator picked up a small bound notebook. The friendly patter was over, and it was time to get down to business. Bankruptcy is a tough subject for a whole lot of reasons—and it didn’t help that I was sitting there with a lap full of graphs and charts. He looked uncomfortable, as if he were about to take some bitter-tasting medicine. He would do it, of course, but he knew it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Seeing his expression, I left the graphs and charts on my lap and just started talking. I talked about medical bills, layoffs, predatory lending. I talked about families broken apart by a cascade of financial problems and crushing debt. Melissa and Melody joined in, and we talked about how bankruptcy served as a last safety net for so many.

The senator took careful notes, and he asked questions. At first he was hesitant to say much, but as I told stories about some of the people I’d met while doing our research, he jumped in more frequently, talking faster and asking more questions. Sometimes he skipped ahead, and sometimes he took off in another direction. But no matter where the conversation went, he always got back to what was happening to working people. Eventually he asked to see the charts.

At some point during the meeting, the senator’s assistant came in from the outer office to say that it was time for him to leave. He waved her off, and we kept digging into the issues.

A while later, Senator Kennedy’s wife, Vicki, stepped in. The senator introduced us and explained what we were talking about. She asked some very thoughtful questions, and he promised that he would be finished soon. Another half hour or so went by, and she reappeared with a gentle reminder that they were already late.

When that didn’t work, Vicki came back in again. And again. She was very sweet about it each time, but they clearly had plans and the senator was way over schedule.

We had talked for about an hour and a half when the senator finally said: “Well, Professor, you’ve done it. I see why we need to stop this bankruptcy bill.” He paused to give it extra emphasis: “You’ve got my vote.”

He smiled broadly. He and I both knew that people asked for his support every day, and his commitment to vote no was a big deal.

I paused for a moment and gazed out at the grand view. Then I said: “Thank you, Senator, but we don’t need your vote. We need your leadership. We need someone to lead the charge.”

Taking the lead on an issue in the Senate is very different from agreeing to lend support. It’s a little like the difference between throwing a party and stopping by to have a drink. The leader needs to rally the troops, lay out a strategy, swap favors here, and apply pressure there. Serious leadership requires an enormous effort, and it takes an enormous amount of time. The bankers had already lined up a lot of powerful Democrats and Republicans to support their bill, which meant this would be an even tougher undertaking.