A Fighting Chance

Recently, a handful of prochoice groups had won some big lawsuits against a few super-aggressive abortion clinic protesters. The judgments levied by the courts against the protesters added up to more than $1 million, but the victories by the prochoice groups evaporated when the protesters filed for bankruptcy and dumped the court orders to pay. A fight erupted over whether this was a fair use of bankruptcy. Prolife advocates argued that it was, but Senator Schumer pushed back hard, adding an amendment to the Senate version of the bankruptcy bill that would block such actions. His amendment inflicted chaos on the credit industry’s well-laid plans.

When the House and Senate bills went to conference, negotiators worked out a compromise. At the last minute, however, House Republicans rejected the compromise language. Now all the pressure was on the Senate to accept the House version and give up on any limits on abortion protestors. But the Senate held firm. Schumer, Kennedy, and Durbin worked the phones, and they picked up enough allies to kill the bill without a vote.

After explaining what had happened, Senator Durbin handed the phone back to Senator Kennedy. He had stopped yelling, and now he was laughing. We did it, he said. We did it! He sounded as if he’d just scored the winning touchdown.

So we had won, at least for another day. The victory was the result of some pretty tangled politics, but the families who needed bankruptcy protection were safe behind our sandbags for a little while longer.

Wanted: A Real Live Banker

The banking industry had lost for a second time, but it came back once again, bringing even more money and more lobbyists. It was like fighting some kind of mythical creature—cut off one head and two grow back.

One morning, I got a call from the producer for a national television news program. I had talked to the media from time to time, sometimes on the record and sometimes on background. My hope was always that they might help bring attention to the important safety net that bankruptcy provides families in trouble. I could tell from the producer’s breathless tone that he thought he had a great offer for me: he asked if I’d agree to come on their show and debate the bankruptcy issue with someone from the banking industry. No interruptions, enough time to talk, a conversation that went straight to the issues.

My stomach knotted up with tension. National television. I might really mess up. On the other hand, I might be able to reach a lot of people.

I was in. “Who will the banker be?”

The producer said he didn’t know, but once they had someone lined up, he would call back. A couple of days later, he telephoned to say that the debate was all set, and he named the other person they would invite.

I asked which bank he worked for.

He checked his notes and then answered: The other guest would be an “industry representative.”

I felt like my balloon had just popped. I told the guy I wouldn’t debate a lobbyist. I said that if he could find a real banker who was willing to go on television and explain his company’s lending practices and their position on this law, I’d be happy to debate him all night long—but not a lobbyist.

He was pretty cheerful. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll call you back.”

Several days went by before he telephoned again. This time he seemed a little more subdued. He told me that he had called bank after bank, and none of them would allow a representative to participate in the debate. The giant banks employed countless executives, but not a single one would appear on television to defend their lending practices or explain all their lobbying in Washington. Not one.

And there it was, the industry’s strategy made plain: Take no responsibility, don’t show your face, just keep spending millions of dollars behind the scenes. Let the “industry representatives” working at trade associations all over Washington talk to the media and keep pushing the $550 lie.

So I turned down that interview, and I didn’t get any other offers to debate bankers. I talked to the press when I could, and occasionally I went to Washington to testify before a congressional committee about the intricacies of bankruptcy law. But mostly I taught my classes and wrote my books.

The Two-Income Trap

In the early 2000s, Terry Sullivan, Jay Westbrook, and I launched another bankruptcy research study. This was our fifth time gathering this kind of data, so I assumed our new findings wouldn’t generate much interest. Boy, was I wrong.

By 2001, the number of families in financial collapse was shocking:



? More children would live through their parents’ bankruptcy than their parents’ divorce.

? More women would file for bankruptcy than would graduate from college.

? More people would file for bankruptcy than would be diagnosed with cancer.

To say the numbers were huge—or enormous or gigantic—didn’t even begin to cut it. Pick an adjective, and the problem was bigger than that.