Russ Feingold: “today we are debating an extremely complicated and extremely important piece of legislation, the bankruptcy reform bill.…”

“today we are debating an extremely complicated and extremely important piece of legislation, the bankruptcy reform bill. With the exception of a small number of amendments adopted by the Judiciary Committee last week, S. 420, the bill before us, is the same bill that President Clinton vetoed last year. The passing of a few months, and the change of Presidents has not made this bill any better, or more fair, or more balanced, or more worthy of this Congress than was the one we passed last year. It is still a bad bill and I urge my colleagues to oppose it. Supporters of the bill have put enormous pressure on the Congress to act quickly and pass the bill again because President Bush has indicated he will sign it. The majority wanted to bring the bill directly to the floor without going through committee, notwithstanding the fact that we have a very different Senate after the last election. We had to fight for every moment of committee consideration. We did succeed in convincing the majority that the Judiciary Committee should consider the bill in committee. We had a quick hearing, and a markup, and I think the bill was improved in the process. Then, the same day that we voted the bill out of committee, the majority leader sought consent to bring the bill up on the floor. I am sorry this rush to judgment is happening. I believe this bill is bad policy, and I believe we will come to regret passing it.”