476

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chair­man. Mr. Chair­man, the rest of the reading would have said that the court may not dis­miss or con­vert a case based on any form of means test­ing if the sub­stan­tial por­tion of the in­debt­ed­ness was in­curred as a re­sult of ill­ness of the debt­or, a de­pen­dent of the debt­or or the debt­or's spouse if not the de­pen­dent of the debt­or.

Mr. Chair­man, we're talking about bank­rupt­cy abuse. Bank­rupt­cy fil­ings have in­creased lately in re­cent years, and some of the people who file for bank­rupt­cy haven't been fi­nan­cially re­spon­si­ble, but the more like­ly ex­pla­na­tion is that the con­sumer bank­rupt­cy re­sults were something be­yond their con­trol such as a di­vorce, major ill­ness or job loss.

The truth is that many people are just one paycheck away or a job loss away or an uncov­ered med­i­cal catastrophe away from bank­rupt­cy. We know at the pres­ent time there are about 1.5 mil­lion people who go into bank­rupt­cy ev­ery year. Half of those people who go into bank­rupt­cy go into bank­rupt­cy be­cause of med­i­cal bills. About three-fourths of those who go into bank­rupt­cy be­cause of med­i­cal bills even have in­sur­ance. But none­the­less the explosion of health care costs have added such a bur­den to these fam­i­lies that they've end­ed up in bank­rupt­cy.

Mr. Chair­man, if the pur­pose of the leg­is­la­tion is to deal with spendthrifts who are abusers of cred­it, we ought to distinguish them from the hard work­ing Amer­i­cans, basically middle class work­ing fam­i­lies who have health in­sur­ance, or those on the right of the mar­gin who wish they had health in­sur­ance, and those who are irre­spon­si­ble in ac­quir­ing debt.

Mr. Chair­man, if we don't adopt this amend­ment we'll be send­ing the mes­sage that if you get sick, you're abusing the sys­tem. Mr. Chair­man, we need to make sure that in­di­vid­u­als who are af­forded the pro­tec­tion of Chap­ter 7 bank­rupt­cy, if a sub­stan­tial por­tion of their bills were in­curred as a re­sult of ill­ness, and I would hope we would adopt the amend­ment.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Gentlemen from Utah.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chair­man. If I might ask, Mr. Scott, on line 3 it says "on any form of means test­ing if, the a sub­stan­tial por­tion," but I take it the comma and the "the" should be stricken? I don't know that it makes sense oth­er­wise.

Mr. SCOTT. Yes, Mr. Chair­man. I think the af­ter—"if" the comma should not be there.

Mr. CANNON. And the "the" should not be there ei­ther?

Mr. SCOTT. If the—right.

Mr. CANNON. So it means test­ing——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. With­out ob­jec­tion the amend­ment is mod­i­fied.

Mr. SCOTT. To de­lete the comma and the "the" on line 3.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Gentleman from Utah.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chair­man.

Again we're deal­ing with is­sues that are sim­i­lar to what we just dealt with pri­or to the last amend­ment, and I'm not going to bela­bor it ex­cept to encourage my—Members of the Com­mit­tee to vote against this amend­ment. It pre­vents the—which pre­vents the case filed by a debt­or from be­ing dis­missed un­der the means test. The spe­cial cir­cum­stances pro­vi­sion in sec­tion 102(a) ad­dresses the con­cerns that are raised by this amend­ment I be­lieve, and the

477

 

 

 

 

amend­ment does not ad­dress cir­cum­stances where the debt­or is cur­rently healthy, and what happens if the debt­or's a millionaire? That we're not deal­ing with—that's been raised sig­nif­i­cant­ly here.

This is on page 12 of the bill. The par­a­graph be­gin­ning with line 5 deals with those spe­cial med­i­cal—those cir­cum­stances such as a se­ri­ous med­i­cal con­di­tion which I think deals with this is­sue ap­pro­pri­ate­ly.

Mr. SCOTT. Would the gen­tle­man make that ci­ta­tion again, please?

Mr. CANNON. Yeah. On page 12 of the print­ed bill, it's a—line 5, cap­i­tal B(i) or 1, and it's really line 7 that says "such as a se­ri­ous med­i­cal con­di­tion" is one of those spe­cial cir­cum­stances. So I think that we've ac­tu­al­ly dealt with this is­sue in this bill. So I would encourage the Members of the Com­mit­tee to vote against this amend­ment, and yield back the bal­ance of my time.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The ques­tion is on the adop­tion of the amend­ment of­fered by the gen­tle­man from Virginia, Mr. Scott. Those in fa­vor will say aye.

Opposed, no.

The noes ap­pear to have it. The noes have it and the amend­ment is not agreed to. Are there fur­ther amend­ments?

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chair­man?

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man from Virginia, Mr. Scott.

 

 

Mr. SCOTT. I have an amend­ment at the desk, 003.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The clerk will re­port the amend­ment.

Mr. SCOTT. And, Mr. Chair­man, un­der the—in light of the ac­tions of the ma­jor­i­ty I'd want to take up 005 at the same time and take them en bloc.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The clerk will re­port amend­ments 003 and 005, and while the clerk is doing that, the staff will dis­trib­ute both amend­ments. The clerk will read.

The CLERK. Amend­ment to S. 256 of­fered by Mr. Scott of Virginia. Page 13, af­ter line 23, in­sert the fol­low­ing (and make such tech­ni­cal and con­form­ing changes as may be ap­pro­pri­ate:) E, sub­par­a­graphs (a) through (c) shall not ap­ply and the court may not dis­miss or——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. With­out ob­jec­tion the amend­ments will be con­sid­ered en bloc and with­out ob­jec­tion the amend­ments will be con­sid­ered as read, and the gen­tle­man from Virginia is re­cog­nized for 5 min­utes.

[The en bloc amend­ments fol­low:]

 

 

480

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chair­man. 003 al­lows a spouse to file for bank­rupt­cy if their—a per­son to file for bank­rupt­cy if their spouse—if a sub­stan­tial of the bills are due to busi­ness losses in­curred by a spouse who has died or deserted. For ex­am­ple, if a wife co-signs some busi­ness loans on be­half of her hus­band, and the hus­band—the busi­ness fails be­cause the hus­band died or disap­pears and deserts the wife, the wife is left hold­ing the bag and bills she can never pay.

The bill would de­ny bank­rupt­cy re­lief for the spouse if the per­son is mak­ing more than the me­di­an amount, say, $50,000. If they co-signed $500,000 worth of bills that spouse would be left hold­ing the bag and un­able to de­clare bank­rupt­cy. If they can pay a couple hundred dol­lars a month, $10,000 over 5 years, they would not be able to file bank­rupt­cy. That es­sen­tially means that ev­erything over food and rent would be garnisheed from the per­son be­cause they had the bad judg­ment to co-sign their spouse's busi­ness loans. It may be bad judg­ment but it's cer­tainly not abu­sive.

The oth­er amend­ment, Mr. Chair­man, is if your bills are due, if you've gotten into fi­nan­cial dif­fi­culty be­cause you lost your job through no fault of your own, you shouldn't be de­nied the op­por­tu­ni­ty to file for bank­rupt­cy. After Enron and WorldCom we found that a lot of people lose their jobs through no fault of their own be­cause their com­pa­nies went bank­rupt. Traditionally in the midst of—or if it's a downward econ­o­my, traditionally we deal with widespread job loss by pro­tect­ing the em­ploy­ees by doing such things as ex­tend­ing unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits. Now we're punishing the em­ploy­ee by pro­tect­ing the cred­i­tors and bills they can't pay. Amer­i­can fam­i­lies would be well served if Con­gress ad­dressed the widespread eco­nom­ic inse­cu­ri­ty that house­holds face rath­er than close this door to an op­tion of last resort.

Mr. Chair­man, this job loss amend­ment would ap­ply if the in­debt­ed­ness was a re­sult of unforeseen loss of em­ploy­ment through no fault of the debt­or. So, Mr. Chair­man, we should not de­ny bank­rupt­cy re­lief if you lose your job through no fault of your own, or be­cause you had the bad judg­ment to co-sign your spouse's busi­ness loan and you got deserted, or the spouse died and the busi­ness went un­der.

I would hope the we would adopt these two amend­ments.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man yield back?

Mr. SCOTT. I yield back. Thank you.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man from Utah, Mr. Cannon.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chair­man. I'm work­ing hard on un­der­stand­ing this. As the oth­er side knows, I'm a slow reader and rel­a­tively dim-witted, and I'll ac­knowl­edge that but still try and help get an un­der­stand­ing of where we're going and why I don't think these amend­ments are nec­es­sary.

As I un­der­stand this, this would cre­ate an ex­emp­tion to the needs based test as a grounds for dis­miss­al so people would not be dis­missed if this hap­pened. I have a couple of prob­lems with them in par­tic­u­lar. In first place they are vague, so that what if the debt­or is Mr. or Mrs. Trump or a widowed Mr. or Mrs. Trump? Why are we deal­ing with busi­ness losses in the first——

Mr. SCOTT. Will the gen­tle­man yield on that point, on that point?

Mr. CANNON. Certainly.

 

 

 

 

481

Mr. SCOTT. If it's Mrs. Trump and she's co-signed the bills and he deserts here and she's left with billions of dol­lars or in­debt­ed­ness, she would be un­able to file for bank­rupt­cy be­cause she can pay $2,000 a year for the next 5 years.

Mr. CANNON. I think this amend­ment, as I un­der­stand it, Mr. Scott, is deal­ing with the same sec­tion and deals with a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion as the last amend­ment, and I be­lieve that that would be tak­en care of by the spe­cial needs sec­tion that we just quoted a few moments ago, so that we al­ready have the sit­u­a­tion where the debt­or can be dis­charged of the in­debt­ed­ness un­der these cir­cum­stances as I read them.

Mr. SCOTT. So a spouse deserting you as part of a spe­cial cir­cum­stance is de­fined?

Mr. CANNON. If you're looking at that sec­tion B(i), and as you go down to line 9, to the ex­tent that such spe­cial cir­cum­stances that jus­ti­fy ad­di­tion­al ex­penses or ad­just­ments of cur­rent month­ly in­come for which there is no rea­son­able al­ter­na­tive. So if a spouse dies, if there's a huge busi­ness debt, I be­lieve that would be cov­ered by the lan­guage that is cur­rently in the bill, and spe­cif­i­cal­ly the job loss. So you have ad­just­ments of cur­rent month­ly in­come which is job loss, as I read——

Mr. SCOTT. Would the gen­tle­man yield?

Mr. CANNON. Certainly.

Mr. SCOTT. Is it your state­ment that the legislative in­tent of the bill is to cov­er people in this—as a spe­cial cir­cum­stance who lose their job through no fault of their own?

Mr. CANNON. Well, I think yes. I'm comfortable with that giv­en the lan­guage of the sec­tion on line 10 that justifies. So you have to prove it, but I think that's a rel­a­tively straightforward pro­cess and deals with the is­sues that you've—that you're sug­gest­ing here, and so I would ask my colleagues on the Com­mit­tee to re­ject these amend­ments, and yield back the bal­ance of my time.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The ques­tion is on the amend­ments en bloc of­fered by the gen­tle­man from Virginia, Mr. Scott. Those in fa­vor will say aye.

Opposed, no.

The noes ap­pear to have it, the noes have it. The amend­ment's not agreed to.

Are there fur­ther amend­ments?

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chair­man?

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man from Massachusetts, Mr. Meehan.

 

 

 

 

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chair­man, I have an amend­ment at the desk.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The clerk will re­port the amend­ment.

Mr. MEEHAN. Designated 001, Conyers 001.

The CLERK. Amend­ment to S. 256 of­fered by Mr. Meehan. Page 13, strike lines 14 through 23, and in­sert the fol­low­ing (and make such tech­ni­cal and con­form­ing changes as may be ap­pro­pri­ate:) D, sub­par­a­graphs (a) through (c) shall not——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. With­out ob­jec­tion the amend­ment will be con­sid­ered as read, and the gen­tle­man from Massachusetts is re­cog­nized for 5 min­utes.

482

 

 

[The amend­ment fol­lows:]

483

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chair­man. This amend­ment is in­tend­ed to pro­tect in­jured or dis­abled vet­er­ans from the harsh and humiliating pro­ce­dures es­tab­lished for debt­ors un­der the newly es­tab­lished means test.

This bank­rupt­cy bill is based on the pre­sump­tion that people who go into bank­rupt­cy are just trying to abuse the sys­tem, and that's why it sets up an artificial means test to pre­vent people from trying to get a fresh start un­der Chap­ter 7. I be­lieve that mem­bers of the mil­i­tary who swear to de­fend this coun­try and risk their lives overseas, the pre­sump­tion should be that they are re­spon­si­ble people. And so this amend­ment aims to ex­empt, all vet­er­ans re­turn­ing home dis­abled, from the artificial means test.

According to the GAO in re­cent years about 16,000 ac­tive du­ty ser­vice mem­bers have filed for bank­rupt­cy an­nual­ly. But with our mil­i­tary ex­tend­ed from Iraq to Afghanistan and reservists sep­a­rated from their fam­i­lies and jobs for long stretches of time, that num­ber is sure to in­crease.

There were ef­forts in the Sen­ate to pro­tect all ser­vice mem­bers from the means test and the abu­sive prac­tices by lenders, but many of them were turned back. Ultimately the Sen­ate agreed on a more narrowly tai­lored pro­tec­tion for only dis­abled ser­vice mem­bers. The Sen­ate amend­ment said that dis­abled vet­er­ans fil­ing for bank­rupt­cy, whose in­debt­ed­ness oc­curred pri­mar­i­ly while on ac­tive du­ty are ex­empt from means test. But the Sen­ate amend­ment fails to ex­empt dis­abled ser­vice mem­bers who accumulated, amounted debt af­ter their re­turn home but be­cause of the in­ju­ry or the dis­abil­i­ty sus­tained while on ac­tive du­ty.

We all know that the mem­bers of the mil­i­tary who serve oftentimes have in­ju­ries that are diagnosed when they get back to the Unit­ed States. There's been a lot of at­ten­tion on PTSD, post traumatic stress syndrome. This amend­ment builds on the Sen­ate com­pro­mise. It pro­tects dis­abled vet­er­ans whose in­debt­ed­ness oc­curred while on ac­tive du­ty as well as those whose in­debt­ed­ness pri­mar­i­ly as a re­sult of their in­ju­ries or dis­abil­i­ties. More than a mil­lion ser­vice mem­bers have served in Iraq. More than 11,000 have been wounded. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, 16 per­cent of Iraq com­bat vet­er­ans are re­turn­ing home with post traumatic stress disorder or oth­er psychological con­di­tions.

Now, I've gone to Wal­ter Reed Hospital and visited kids who are missing arms and missing legs. They're struggling to re­cov­er. They might be un­able to work for months or years, and they may have enormous per­son­al costs as­so­ci­ated with their ongoing med­i­cal treat­ments. This means test in this bill es­tab­lish its com­plete­ly arbitrary cost for ex­penses that have noth­ing to do with the kinds of new ex­penses that dis­abled ser­vice mem­bers might ac­tu­al­ly be facing. All this amend­ment does is pro­tect the rights that dis­abled ser­vice mem­bers have when they file for bank­rupt­cy. It gives judges the dis­cre­tion to de­ter­mine wheth­er they should be el­i­gi­ble for Chap­ter 11, Chap­ter 7 or Chap­ter 13, and does not pre­sume that they are trying to game the sys­tem.

I urge my colleagues to adapt—to adopt this amend­ment, and I urge them to look at the lan­guage that we're talking about, the in­debt­ed—what the Sen­ate lan­guage says is the in­debt­ed­ness oc­curred pri­mar­i­ly dur­ing a pe­ri­od when he or she was in ac­tive du­ty. This lan­guage simply says that the in­debt­ed­ness oc­curred

485

 

 

 

 

pri­mar­i­ly as a re­sult of an in­ju­ry or dis­abil­i­ty re­sult­ing from ac­tive du­ty. Clearly, a min­i­mum we ought to be able to do for a man or a woman who's in­jured in Iraq, who comes home only to find out they have in­ju­ries that they weren't aware of, that we can ex­cuse them from this means test, this arbitrary means test set up in this bill.

Now, surely, even a rush to get this bill out no mat­ter what the amend­ments that are of­fered, surely we can con­sider this amend­ment.

Mr. CONYERS. Would the gen­tle­man yield?

Mr. MEEHAN. I would yield to the ranking——

Mr. CONYERS. I only want to un­derscore the im­por­tance of us sup­port­ing those mem­bers of the armed ser­vices who are not just pro­tect­ing us but putting their lives at risk in an ef­fort to fight a very dif­fi­cult kind of war, unlike any that we've been forced to deal with be­fore. And I concur com­plete­ly in the excellent way that he has put for­ward the logic in this amend­ment.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The time of the gen­tle­man has ex­pired.

Mr. MEEHAN. And again, it's over­whelm­ing ev­i­dence that——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man from Utah, Mr. Cannon.

Mr. MEEHAN—these mem­bers get PTSD and ev­erything else.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man from Utah.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chair­man. I apologize just for a moment here. We apparently got the wrong amend­ment ini­tially here, so I've just been looking this over. And if I might ask Mr. Meehan just one ques­tion.

On line 12 of your amend­ment it says: re­sult of an in­ju­ry or dis­abil­i­ty re­sult­ing from (1) ac­tive du­ty and then per­form­ing home­land de­fense. Does "re­sult­ing from" mean that it hap­pened while on ei­ther ac­tive or per­form­ing, or——

Mr. MEEHAN. No. The ques­tion——

Mr. CANNON. Does it have to be something in­volved—that, you know, if a guy is on ac­tive du­ty but he's out at a bar and he gets in a fistfight and gets dis­abled, do you have—what do you mean by that?

Mr. MEEHAN. No. The in­ju­ry would be re­sult­ing from ac­tive du­ty. In oth­er words, if somebody, as we all know from vet­er­ans coming back de­vel­op PTSD, and the ques­tion al­so is when the in­debt­ed­ness oc­curred. But, no, this is any­one whose in­jured pri­mar­i­ly as a re­sult of, in­ju­ry pri­mar­i­ly the re­sult of ac­tive du­ty. And oftentimes when a ser­vice mem­ber comes home and it's de­ter­mined that they have PTSD, for ex­am­ple, then that is an in­ju­ry that oc­curred as a re­sult of ac­tive du­ty. Yet, if the in­debt­ed­ness was not in­curred while they were on ac­tive du­ty, then they don't get any re­lief un­der this amend­ment. That's a fundamental flaw in what the Sen­ate adopt­ed, and I think we ought to cor­rect it here.

Mr. CANNON. May I just ask, so if some­one who is on ac­tive du­ty is in a bar and gets in a fight, does that re­sult from the ac­tive du­ty since it's—you know, he's in the theater, but it's, you know, a dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stance than what we nor­mal­ly think of as post—PTSD. I don't—I'm just trying to un­der­stand where you're going with——

485

 

 

 

 

Mr. MEEHAN. Well, I can tell you that PTSD, the mil­i­tary has changed their pol­i­cy. We now re­quire, when soldiers come back, to have a full ex­am­i­na­tion——

Mr. CANNON. Reclaim­ing my time, I'm not talking about PTSD so much as trying to un­der­stand, do you in­tend to cov­er ev­erything that happens while a per­son is on ac­tive du­ty——

Mr. MEEHAN. Only if the in­ju­ry is as a re­sult of their ser­vice on ac­tive du­ty. In oth­er words——

Mr. CANNON. So the fight in a bar in Iraq is not going to qual­i­fy—that is a fight with an­oth­er Amer­i­can——

Mr. MEEHAN. Well, if it's in Iraq, it may well qual­i­fy, it may well qual­i­fy. But here's—you're missing the point. What this is about is when the in­debt­ed­ness oc­curred, so even un­der the Sen­ate amend­ment if the in­debt­ed­ness oc­curred while this soldier was in Iraq, I be­lieve he's cov­ered by the Sen­ate lan­guage.

How­ev­er, if a soldier comes back to the Unit­ed States, it's de­ter­mined he has PTSD, and the in­debt­ed­ness oc­curs af­ter that dis­abil­i­ty has been diagnosed, and the in­debt­ed­ness starts to build once a soldier comes back to the Unit­ed States, they wouldn't get re­lief un­der the Sen­ate lan­guage.

Mr. CANNON. Reclaim­ing my time, I think I un­der­stand where you're coming from on that. I'm unclear as to the scope, but let me just point out that the bill al­ready has very sub­stan­tial pro­tec­tions for the mil­i­tary in it. The bill's needs-based test in­cludes nu­mer­ous safe harbors and ex­cep­tions for spe­cial cir­cum­stances. As amend­ed, the spe­cial cir­cum­stances ex­cep­tion spe­cif­i­cal­ly mentions a debt­or who is sub­ject to a call or or­der to ac­tive du­ty in the armed forces. And, as amend­ed, the needs-based test has a spe­cial ex­cep­tion just for debt­ors who are dis­abled vet­er­ans if in­debt­ed­ness oc­curred pri­mar­i­ly dur­ing a pe­ri­od when the debt­or was on ac­tive du­ty or per­form­ing a home­land de­fense ac­tiv­i­ty.

As amend­ed, the bill spe­ci­fies that the ab­so­lute safe harbor from all types of dis­miss­al mo­tions, un­der sec­tion 707(b), ap­plies to a vet­er­an. As amend­ed, the bill ex­cuses a debt­or if he or she is on ac­tive mil­i­tary du­ty in a mil­i­tary com­bat zone from the man­da­tory cred­it coun­sel­ing and fi­nan­cial man­age­ment training re­quire­ments.

I think we've done what we can do for our mem­bers of the mil­i­tary, and so I would encourage the Members of the Com­mit­tee to vote no on this amend­ment.

Mr. MEEHAN. Would the gen­tle­man yield?

Mr. CANNON. Certainly.

Mr. MEEHAN. But what I'm talking about here is people who have been in­jured or have a dis­abil­i­ty as a re­sult of ser­vice, for ex­am­ple, in Iraq. If you want lan­guage, for ex­am­ple, to ex­empt any­one who gets in a bar fight in Iraq, I would be glad to do that, but what——

Mr. CANNON. No. I'm just trying to un­der­stand what you want to do but——

Mr. MEEHAN. What I'm talking about is if a soldier who serves in Iraq and comes home with­out a leg or an­oth­er—with­out an arm, as they have at Wal­ter Reed Hospital, literally thousands of them, and they have PTSD, as many of them do, and their in­debt­ed­ness starts to grow when they get back from ac­tive du­ty, they ought to be cov­ered by the same kind of ex­emp­tion here.

486

 

 

 

 

Mr. CANNON. Are you sug­gest­ing that—you've talked about post traumatic stress syndrome——

Mr. MEEHAN. As one ex­am­ple.

Mr. CANNON. As an ex­am­ple, but is that be­cause——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Time of the gen­tle­man has ex­pired.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, yield back.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The ques­tion is on the amend­ment of­fered by the gen­tle­man from Massachusetts, Mr. Meehan. Those in fa­vor will say aye.

Opposed, no.

The noes ap­pear to have it.

Mr. MEEHAN. rollcall, Mr. Chair­man.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. rollcall will be or­dered. The ques­tion is on the Meehan amend­ment. Those in fa­vor will as your names are called an­swer aye, those op­posed, no, and the clerk will call the roll

The CLERK. Mr. Hyde?

[No re­sponse.].

The CLERK. Mr. Coble?

Mr. COBLE. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Coble, no. Mr. Smith?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Gallegly?

Mr. GALLEGLY. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Gallegly, no. Mr. Goodlatte?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Chabot?

Mr. CHABOT. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Chabot, no. Mr. Lungren?

Mr. LUNGREN. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Lungren, no. Mr. Jenkins?

Mr. JENKINS. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Jenkins, no. Mr. Cannon?

Mr. CANNON. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Cannon, no. Mr. Bachus?

Mr. BACHUS. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Bachus, no. Mr. Inglis?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Hostettler?

Mr. HOSTETTLER. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Hostettler, no. Mr. Green?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Keller?

Mr. KELLER. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Keller, no. Mr. Issa?

Mr. ISSA. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Issa, no. Mr. Flake?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Pence?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Forbes?

Mr. FORBES. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Forbes, no. Mr. King?

Mr. KING. No.

The CLERK. Mr. King, no. Mr. Feeney?

487

 

 

 

 

Mr. FEENEY. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Feeney, no. Mr. Franks?

Mr. FRANKS. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Franks, no. Mr. Gohmert?

Mr. GOHMERT. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Gohmert, no. Mr. Conyers?

Mr. CONYERS. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Conyers, aye. Mr. Berman?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Boucher?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Nadler?

Mr. NADLER. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Nadler, aye. Mr. Scott?

Mr. SCOTT. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Scott, aye. Mr. Watt?

Mr. WATT. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Watt, aye. Ms. Lofgren?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Ms. Jackson Lee?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Ms. Waters?

Ms. WATERS. Aye.

The CLERK. Ms. Waters, aye. Mr. Meehan?

Mr. MEEHAN. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Meehan, aye. Mr. Delahunt?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Wexler?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Weiner?

Mr. WEINER. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Weiner, aye. Mr. Schiff?

Mr. SCHIFF. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Schiff, aye. Ms. Sanchez?

Ms. SANCHEZ. Aye.

The CLERK. Ms. Sanchez, aye. Mr. Smith?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Van Hollen?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Van Hollen, aye. Mr. Chair­man?

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Chair­man, no.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Members in the chamber who wish to cast or change their votes? Gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Boucher?

Mr. BOUCHER. Votes no.

The CLERK. Mr. Boucher, no.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Gentleman from California, Mr. Berman?

Mr. BERMAN. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Berman, aye.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee?

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Am I re­cord­ed?

The CLERK. Mr. Chair­man, Ms. Jackson Lee is not re­cord­ed.

488

 

 

 

 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Aye.

The CLERK. Ms. Jackson Lee, aye.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Further Members in the—gen­tle­man from Texas, Mr. Smith.

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. Mr. Chair­man, I vote no.

The CLERK. Mr. Smith, no.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Gentleman from South Car­o­li­na, Mr. Inglis.

Mr. INGLIS. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Inglis, no.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Any oth­er Members in the chamber who wish to cast or change their votes? If not, the clerk will re­port. The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Waters?

Ms. WATERS. Aye.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Is Ms. Waters re­cord­ed?

The CLERK. Mr. Chair­man, Ms. Waters is re­cord­ed with aye.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The clerk will re­port.

The CLERK. Mr. Chair­man, there are 12 ayes and 19 noes.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. And the amend­ment is not agreed to. Are there fur­ther amend­ments?

 

 

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chair­man, I have an amend­ment.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man from California, Mr. Schiff?

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chair­man, I have an amend­ment——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Can I have a parliamentary in­qui­ry, pleases? What is the or­der of se­lect­ing people to do amend­ments?

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The or­der is at the dis­cre­tion of the Chair. The gen­tle­man from California, Mr. Schiff.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. That's what I no­tice, so let me say that I re­ject the dis­cre­tion of the Chair. I've had my hand up forever and ever——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman from Texas is out of or­der.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You need to be fair.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man from—the Chair has al­ways been fair and——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Not really.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Well, the clerk will re­port the amend­ment of the gen­tle­man from California, Mr. Schiff.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I'm planning on stay­ing here all evening till you call on me.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman from Texas will be called on in due course. Which amend­ment does the——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, it will be 12 tonight and I'll be right here wait­ing to be called on. You're rudely un­fair.

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chair­man——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Had my hand up forever.

Mr. SCHIFF. The amend­ment is num­bered 002.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The clerk will re­port the amend­ment of the gen­tle­man from California.

Mr. SCHIFF. Amend­ment to S. 256 of­fered by Mr. Schiff. Page 92, af­ter line 5, in­sert the fol­low­ing (and make such tech­ni­cal and con­form­ing changes as may be ap­pro­pri­ate:).

489

 

 

 

 

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. With­out ob­jec­tion, the amend­ment is con­sid­ered as read, and the gen­tle­man from California is re­cog­nized for 5 min­utes.

[The amend­ment fol­lows:]

 

 

491

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chair­man, I will keep this very brief and it won't consume 5 min­utes.

This amend­ment would au­tho­rize a study by the GAO to de­ter­mine any ef­fects the bill may have on the abil­i­ty of a par­ent to pay child sup­port or the abil­i­ty of a par­ent to col­lect child sup­port. Probably the most sig­nif­i­cant concern about the bill for me is the col­lat­er­al con­se­quence of the bill, where those trying to col­lect child sup­port may be placed in indi­rect or di­rect compe­ti­tion with cred­it card com­pa­nies or others who are in a much stronger po­si­tion to col­lect on out­stand­ing debts than those who are en­ti­tled to child sup­port.

This amend­ment is iden­ti­cal to the one I of­fered 4 years ago that made it into the man­ag­er's amend­ment but was lat­er re­moved from the man­ag­er's amend­ment. It would mere­ly re­quire that a study be con­duct­ed so that we can de­ter­mine, af­ter a suit­able pe­ri­od of time elapses, if there has been an ad­verse im­pact in this area. Some have as­sert­ed that por­tions of the bill will ac­tu­al­ly help those at­tempt­ing to col­lect child sup­port, but I think it is still unclear what the im­pact will be on those who are en­ti­tled to child sup­port and maybe un­able to col­lect it. This amend­ment will pro­vide for a good and ob­jective anal­y­sis to help us de­ter­mine wheth­er sub­se­quent leg­is­la­tion as a fol­low up would be prudent.

The bill only calls for a study. It does not im­pede the date of en­act­ment of the bill or im­ple­men­ta­tion of the bill.

With that, Mr. Chair­man, I will yield the bal­ance of my time.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man from Utah, Mr. Cannon.

Mr. CANNON. Thank you, Mr. Chair­man.

 

 

Let me re­spond by just sub­mit­ting for the rec­ord a Na­tion­al Child Sup­port Enforcement As­so­ci­a­tion state­ment sup­port­ing the bill. This is from, I think this is from 2002, but I think the prin­ci­ples are the same.

Let me just point out that this study can be had just by a re­quest from Con­gress. We could even do a bi­par­ti­san re­quest of GAO, and I as­sure the gen­tle­man from California that I would be happy to sign that re­quest with him if he'd like to do that.

We do not need to amend the study—or amend the bill to get a study like this, and so I would encourage my colleagues to vote against this amend­ment, and I yield back the bal­ance of my time.

[The ma­te­ri­al re­ferred to fol­lows:]

493

Mr. CONYERS. Could the gen­tle­man from Utah yield, please?

Mr. CANNON. Mr. Conyers, I'd be happy to yield to you in just a moment, but may I sug­gest to the gen­tle­man that he might want to with­draw the amend­ment. And I'd be happy to sign a let­ter asking for the study.

Mr. SCHIFF. If the gen­tle­man will yield, I'd be happy to yield to the—I was going to say I'm—un­less my colleague ob­jects, I'd be happy to with­draw the amend­ment and join my colleague in——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. With­out ob­jec­tion, the amend­ment is with­drawn.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Are there fur­ther amend­ments? The gen­tle­man from Michigan, Mr. Conyers.

Mr. CONYERS. I wanted to just make—strike the last word.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man is re­cog­nized for 5 min­utes.

Mr. CONYERS. After the distinguished gen­tle­la­dy from Texas is re­cog­nized, and af­ter the Ranking Mem­ber of Com­mer­cial and Ad­min­is­tra­tive Law Subcom­mit­tee, Mr. Watt, makes an im­por­tant pres­en­ta­tion on his amend­ment, it is my inclination to call for the pre­vi­ous ques­tion. And I yield back my time.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Does the gen­tle­man from Michigan yield back?

Mr. CONYERS. Yes, sir. I do.

 

 

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. For what pur­pose does the gentlewoman from Texas seek rec­og­ni­tion?

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I have an amend­ment at the desk.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The clerk will re­port the amend­ment.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. It is 001, and I have five amend­ments.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. With­out ob­jec­tion, the amend­ments are con­sid­ered en bloc.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chair­man, I am not asking him for them to be con­sid­ered en bloc.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The clerk will re­port the amend­ment.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. 001, please.

The CLERK. Amend­ment to S. 256 of­fer by Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas. Page 10, line 22, strike "$1,500" and in­sert "$3,000."

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman is re­cog­nized for 5 min­utes.

[The amend­ment fol­lows:]

 

 

495

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the Chair­man very much. I would like to have re­cord­ed—well, let me just make a state­ment. I was unavoidably detained for the Schiff amend­ment deal­ing with iden­ti­ty theft. I'd like to be re­cord­ed as vot­ing aye if I had been pres­ent. And I was detained for the Nadler amend­ment. I'd like to be re­cord­ed as hav­ing voted yes.

With that in mind, to my colleagues, I think that this amend­ment is a very straightforward and sim­ple amend­ment, and would generate, I would hope, bi­par­ti­san sup­port. My amend­ment simply in­creases the amount of re­lief that is giv­en to those par­ents who have chil­dren in pri­vate and parochial schools, rais­ing the amount that is pro­tected from $1,500 to $3,000.

Let me share with my colleagues what has been re­cent­ly noted as pri­vate school dol­lars. In looking at a list of schools from Texas, you will find that most pri­vate schools, that is, pri­ma­ry schools, are any­where from $3,500 to $5,000. The $1,500 would simply throw chil­dren out of school and elim­i­nate—or bur­den chil­dren who are not re­spon­si­ble for the dif­fi­cul­ties of their par­ents. The mean test mech­a­nism, the prin­ci­pal mech­a­nism aimed at the bank­rupt­cy fil­ing rate is the means test un­der sec­tion 11, which de­nies ac­cess to Chap­ter 7 bank­rupt­cy to those debt­ors who are deem­ed able to re­pay their debts. The test has been de­scribed by proponents as a flexible test to as­sess an in­di­vid­u­al's abil­i­ty to re­pay his debts and as a rem­e­dy to irre­spon­si­ble con­sumerism and lax bank­rupt­cy law.

The Jackson Lee amend­ment seeks to re­move one as­pect of its inflexibility and outdatedness. The means test lim­its pri­vate or parochial school tu­ition ex­penses up to $1,500 per year. According to a study by the Na­tion­al Center for Educational Statistics, even in 1993, $1,500 would not have cov­ered the av­er­age tu­ition for virtually any cat­e­go­ry of parochial school—of any parochial school or pri­vate school. Today it would not come close for any par­tic­u­lar school. In or­der to yield a few dol­lars for cred­it card is­suers, this bill would force many struggling fam­i­lies to take their chil­dren from pri­vate or parochial school, often in vi­o­la­tion of deeply held re­li­gious be­liefs, for 3 to 5 years in or­der to con­form or con­firm a Chap­ter 13 plan.

My amend­ment, as I in­di­cated, would simply in­crease this tu­ition pay­ment ceiling to $3,000 to ac­count for inflation as well as the cur­rent cost of parochial tu­ition. The av­er­age cost to educate one elementary school stu­dent is $3,100, which is double what it was 10 years ago.

As I look at the crisis of ed­u­ca­tion in Amer­i­ca, it would cer­tainly be shame­ful if we stood in this room to de­ny in­di­vid­u­als the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be educated.

Let me share as well some food for thought for my colleagues in their un­der­stand­ing or in their de­lib­er­a­tion on the fi­nal res­o­lu­tion of this par­tic­u­lar leg­is­la­tion. We realize that if you are with a bad cred­it score and you do ac­cept a cred­it card, which they are giv­en to any­one that literally breathes in Amer­i­ca, you are usu­ally pay­ing usurious rates, 29 per­cent, 24 per­cent. Those in­ter­est rates are in essence an in­sur­ance against those who may get themselves into trou­ble. That means this is the in­sur­ance that is giv­en to the cred­it card com­pany when there are those who de­fault. And what is strange about this is that the cred­it card com­pa­nies col­lect this risk pre­mi­um year in and year out, but when the risk ac­tu­al­ly happens

496

 

 

 

 

 and the bor­row­er can­not pay, the lenders want the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene to force the debt­or to pay. That is the ludicrous—the ridiculousness of this leg­is­la­tion. Cred­it card com­pa­nies go off scot free, and those who are vic­timized have to pay.

I would like to—and that is by Elizabeth Warren, at least the com­ment that I read. I don't want to put the oth­er com­ments—the com­ment that I read about the risk ac­tu­al­ly happens is a no­ta­tion by Elizabeth Warren.

I would like to put into the rec­ord what was writ­ten by David Broder, and I'd ask unan­i­mous con­sent to put his en­tire ar­ti­cle into the rec­ord.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. With­out ob­jec­tion.

[The ma­te­ri­al re­ferred to fol­lows:]

 

497

498

Ms. JACKSON LEE. One of the par­a­graphs reads, "For 2 weeks the Sen­ate sponsors shot down virtually ev­ery at­tempt to sep­a­rate the sheep from the goats and carve out pro­tec­tions for the av­er­age fam­i­ly trapped by cir­cum­stances. The dry lan­guage of the Congressional Record recites a se­ries of one-sided votes re­ject­ing amend­ments "to pro­tect ser­vice mem­bers and vet­er­ans . . . to ex­empt debt­ors whose fi­nan­cial prob­lems were caused by se­ri­ous med­i­cal prob­lems . . . to pre­serve ex­ist­ing bank­rupt­cy pro­tec­tions for in­di­vid­u­als experiencing'——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman's time has——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I don't want to fol­low the——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER—ex­pired.

Ms. JACKSON LEE—Sen­ate. I'd ask you to sup­port my amend­ment.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman's time has ex­pired. The ques­tion is on the Jackson Lee amend­ment. Those in fa­vor will say aye?

Those op­posed, no?

The noes ap­pear to have it. The noes——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. rollcall vote.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Those in fa­vor of the Jackson Lee amend­ment will, as your names are called, an­swer aye, those op­posed, no, and the clerk will call the roll.

The CLERK. Mr. Hyde?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Coble?

Mr. COBLE. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Coble, no. Mr. Smith?

Mr. SMITH OF TEXAS. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Smith, no. Mr. Gallegly?

Mr. GALLEGLY. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Gallegly, no. Mr. Goodlatte?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Chabot?

Mr. CHABOT. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Chabot, no. Mr. Lungren?

Mr. LUNGREN. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Lungren, no. Mr. Jenkins?

Mr. JENKINS. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Jenkins, no. Mr. Cannon?

Mr. CANNON. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Cannon, no. Mr. Bachus?

Mr. BACHUS. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Bachus, no. Mr. Inglis?

Mr. INGLIS. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Inglis, no. Mr. Hostettler?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Green?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Keller?

Mr. KELLER. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Keller, no. Mr. Issa?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Flake?

[No re­sponse.]

499

 

 

 

 

The CLERK. Mr. Pence?

Mr. PENCE. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Pence, no. Mr. Forbes?

Mr. FORBES. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Forbes, no. Mr. King?

Mr. KING. No.

The CLERK. Mr. King, no. Mr. Feeney?

Mr. FEENEY. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Feeney, no. Mr. Franks?

Mr. FRANKS. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Franks, no. Mr. Gohmert?

Mr. GOHMERT. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Gohmert, no. Mr. Conyers?

Mr. CONYERS. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Conyers, aye. Mr. Berman?

Mr. BERMAN. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Berman, aye. Mr. Boucher?

Mr. BOUCHER. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Boucher, no. Mr. Nadler?

Mr. NADLER. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Nadler, aye. Mr. Scott?

Mr. SCOTT. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Scott, aye. Mr. Watt?

Mr. WATT. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Watt, aye. Ms. Lofgren?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Ms. Jackson Lee?

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Aye.

The CLERK. Ms. Jackson Lee, aye. Ms. Waters?

Ms. WATERS. Aye.

The CLERK. Ms. Waters, aye. Mr. Meehan?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Delahunt?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Wexler?

[No re­sponse.]

The CLERK. Mr. Weiner?

Mr. WEINER. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Weiner, aye. Mr. Schiff?

Mr. SCHIFF. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Schiff, aye. Ms. Sanchez?

Ms. SANCHEZ. Aye.

The CLERK. Ms. Sanchez, aye. Mr. Smith?

Mr. SMITH. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Smith, aye. Mr. Van Hollen?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Van Hollen, aye. Mr. Chair­man?

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Chair­man, no.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Members in the chamber who wish to cast or change their vote? The gen­tle­man from Wisconsin, Mr. Green.

Mr. GREEN. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Green, no.

500

 

 

 

 

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gen­tle­man from Virginia, Mr. Good­latte.

Mr. GOODLATTE. No.

The CLERK. Mr. Goodlatte, no.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Further Members in the chamber who wish to cast or change their vote? The gen­tle­man from California, Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Aye.

The CLERK. Mr. Issa, aye.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. Further Members in the chamber who wish to cast or change their vote? If not, the clerk will re­port.

The CLERK. Mr. Chair­man, there are 12 ayes and 21 noes.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. And the amend­ment is not agreed to.

Are there fur­ther amend­ments?

 

 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I have an amend­ment at the desk, Mr. Chair­man.

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. The gentlewoman from Texas. The clerk will re­port the amend­ment.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. It is 003.

The CLERK. Amend­ment to S. 256, of­fered by Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas. Page 20, line 24, in­sert "as­sis­tance funds re­ceived by the debt­or as a vic­tim of a nat­u­ral disaster'——

Chair­man SENSENBRENNER. With­out ob­jec­tion, the amend­ment is con­sid­ered as read.

[The amend­ment fol­lows:]