If Edwards is for the "Little Guy"

[HFishbine]

why did he vote for a bill that makes it harder to declare bankruptcy while Kerry voted against it?

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00236#position

[DjTj]

1. Which bill? (nt)

[HFishbine]

3. Sorry

Link added to original post.

[buckeye1]

2. Ask him.

How would anyone here know?

[AP]

4. For all the reasons we've discussed before:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=99819

mbali's post 17:

mbali  (598 posts)

Sun Jan-11-04 10:32 AM
Response to Reply #8

17. This was far more complicated - and less damning - than made to appear ...

Edited on Sun Jan-11-04 10:41 AM by mbali





Edwards voted for the Senate version of the bill, but there's more to the story.

Edwards joined most Democrats, including Kerry, Schumer, Wellstone, etc. in attaching an amendment, authored by Wellstone himself, that made the Senate version much harsher on the banking industry and easier on individual debtors. At that point, it became a judgment call whether to vote for the bill or against it since voting for it, with the amendment, would force the bill to conference and increase the likelihood that it would die in conference or that conference would produce a version more favorable to individuals than it otherwise would have been. The odds of this were excellent since Leahy, Kennedy, Feingold, Schumer, Durbin were among the Democratic conferees. The banking industry and corporate interests hated this version, by the way.

And, yes, Kerry, Wellstone and 14 other Democrats voted against final passage. But all of the other Democrats, including Clinton, Cleland and Edwards, voted for final passage, largely because they knew that the version the Dems had forced would probably eventually scuttle the bill. And it has. The bill died at the end of the 107th Congress.

It's important to know all of the facts before condemning anyone for one particular vote. Senate procedure and strategy is extremely complicated and just looking at a yea or nay does not always tell the story. That's why it is sometimes misleading to try to characterize anyone's motives or views just by looking at one vote.

[AP]

5. Bottom line: Bush controls all branches of gov't and this bill isn't law

and the credit cards don't have the profit-protection bill Bush promised them. So whatever they did seems to have worked to protect Americans even though Dems' only power in government today is through the few procedural strategies they can exercise thanks to the fact that Republicans don't have a super-majority.

[Renew Deal]

17. This didn't pass?

I thought it was signed into law. What happened to it?

[HFishbine]

8. I guess

Kerry, who voted against it (along with Kennedy, Fiengold and others) didn't see the wisdom of Edwards' approach.

[AP]

11. Yeah, Edwards helped write a bill they knew would never get of the Senate

and he votes for it (with the poison pills he helped put in it) because he doesn't want commercials running in NC telling the thousands of bank employees that he voted AGAINST YOUR JOBS, and that makes, who? Dean? a better candidate?

NC is going to be a tight state that Edwards could win. Get all Gore's states, loose FL, and win NC and you have a Dem president.

Bush is allowed to do stuff like this to win PA and OH, but we're going to try to convince people Edwards is bank whore over this?

Do you have ONE other piece of evidence to corrroborate the claim that he's a bank whore?

Like, does he say on the stump that he thinks more debt is GOOD for people (which is what Dean said with his education plan)?

[flaminbats]

15. Why defend this shitty vote?

It's bad enough when you have a health problem, and don't even have any money to pay your debts. But at least these people usually have the option of declaring bankruptcy!

But now Edwards wants to keep the ball and chain around the kidney dialysis patient or the cancer patient,"work ya cripple or else we'll take every fucking thing you earned in life!"

Ahhh yes, no health-care, no more protections under the bankruptcy laws..but loads of our tax dollars for the Iraqis and corporate America!

[JVS]

6. Because caring for "little people" is the oldest election ploy in the...

book.

[AP]

9. ...and I have yet to see a SINGLE piece of evidence that Edwards

hasn't put the interests of people who work for a living first.

Pretending that he is a whore for the banks (a guy who doesn't take any PAC money, a guy whom NC bank lobbyists have said rarely answered their calls before 2002 and never answers them now, and a guy who attacks predatory ledning and outrageous debt loads on Americans) is just shooting yourself in the foot when it comes time to vote for someone who ACTUALLY is running on the promise to give you back the economic power Bush is stealing from you.

[Nazgul35]

16. good question.....

why not put it too the test.....

As discussed in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=160592

both Kerry and Edwards have the opportunity to lead the Dems in a filibuster against the spending bill that has the overtime changes attached as a rider.....

The news is reporting that the Dems are not going to be able to stop it.....

My qeustion is that if these two men want to lead this party, here is a perfect chance to show all of us just what kind of leadership they possess......get the Dems to stop it....

Get in Bush's face now and I guarantee you that the one who does will win the nomination!

[DjTj]

10. umm...yeah...

...he's just pretending to care about people that grow up just like he did and he was just pretending to care about all those people he went to court for...

:eyes:

Thanks AP for the real answer.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=157849#157924

[blm]

7. NC is a big banking state. He'd be serving his constituency, the employees

of those institutions, I imagine. There are lots of regular workers employed there. Jobs matter.

[Lex]

12. Or See #4 above.

That seems more likely.

[flaminbats]

18. you bet Jobs matter!

and people will spend every damned cent they saved just to defeat cancer or any other life-threatening disease.


Jobs matter..and to the businessman every cent taken from the dieing patient is worth a hell of alot more than morality. Yes...not a good way to be elected, but it still has some value..

Divide and conquer...what a great Carl Rove strategy, divide the uninsured and the unemployed.

[Lex]

13. He's for renewable energy too!

And he's for the little guy!

Cool.

[Very Good Dem]

14. Your repeated attacks on Edwards would have a lot more credibility

if they were accurate. However, your posts are very misleading.

You're very good at telling half of the story when the whole story presents an entirely different picture.