Russ Feingold: “By eliminating the automatic stay, section 311 of this bill is an enormous change in the law in favor of landlords. What…”

“By eliminating the automatic stay, section 311 of this bill is an enormous change in the law in favor of landlords. What the Senator does not make clear is that we are not undoing that change with this amendment. What our amendment does is streamline the process for lifting the automatic stay, rather than eliminating the stay altogether. So instead of a 6- or 8-week period, or longer, to get the stay lifted, our amendment provides a 15-day period, and the State eviction proceedings go forward. But those proceedings cannot go forward when the tenant is paying rent. All we are saying is that if a person is truly trying to get his or her act together, and is willing, from the time of the bankruptcy filing forward, to pay rent every month, on time, then in those cases the stay should be in place. I think that is enormously reasonable.”