More about my NY senator-
From:
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript306_full.htmlBill Moyers interview with Elizabeth Warren (author of The Two Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers And Fathers Are Going Broke and teacher @ Harvard Law School)
WARREN: And she says, "Tell me about bankruptcy." And I got to tell you, I never had a smarter student. Quick, right to the heart of it. I go over the law. It's a complex law. Went over the economics. Showed her the graphs, showed her the charts. And she got it.
Within 20 minutes, she could play where the rest of it would come. Well, then that will mean this part's happened. That will mean this has happened. I said, "Yes, that's right." And at the end of the conversation, Mrs. Clinton stood up. She said, "Let's get our picture taken" which we did, and she said, "Professor Warren, we've got to stop that awful bill," referring to this bankruptcy bill that sponsored by the credit card companies.
She went back to White House, and I heard later from someone who is a White House staffer that there were skid marks in the hallways when Mrs. Clinton got back as people reversed direction on that bankruptcy bill. President…
MOYERS: That was supporting the industry. And because of her…
WARREN: President Clinton had been showing that this is another way that he could be helpful to business. It wasn't a very high visibility bill. And when Mrs. Clinton came back with a little better understanding of how it all worked, they reversed course, and they reversed course fast. And indeed, the proof is in the pudding.
The last bill that came before President Clinton was that bankruptcy bill that was passed by the House and the Senate in 2000 and he vetoed it. And in her autobiography, Mrs. Clinton took credit for that veto and she rightly should. She turned around a whole administration on the subject of bankruptcy. She got it.
MOYERS: And then?
WARREN: One of the first bills that came up after she was Senator Clinton was the bankruptcy bill. This is a bill that's like a vampire. It will not die. Right? There's a lot of money behind it, and it…
MOYERS: Bill, her husband, who vetoed…
WARREN: Her husband had vetoed it very much at her urging.
MOYERS: And?
WARREN: She voted in favor of it.
MOYERS: Why?
WARREN: As Senator Clinton, the pressures are very different. It's a well-financed industry. You know a lot of people don't realize that the industry that gave the most money to Washington over the past few years was not the oil industry, was not pharmaceuticals. It was consumer credit products. Those are the people. The credit card companies have been giving money, and they have influence.
MOYERS: And Mrs. Clinton was one of them as Senator.
WARREN: She has taken money from the groups, and more to the point, she worries about them as a constituency.
MOYERS: But what does this mean though to these people, these millions of people out there whom the politicians cavort in front of as favoring the middle class, and then are beholden to the powerful interests that undermine the middle class? What does this say about politics today?
WARREN: You know this is the scary part about democracy today. It's… We're talking again about the impact of money. The credit industry on this bankruptcy bill has spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying, and as their profits grow, they just throw more into lobbying for how they can get laws that will make it easier and easier and easier to drain money out of the pockets of middle class families.
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