Posted on 09/25/2002 7:48:50 PM PDT by RCW2001
That I agree with. Can you give me a cite where civil suits can be discharged by bankruptcy, please?From the Senate, on the bill I believe all the bold and emphasis is mine.
Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1999 . . . S. 625. Schumer amendment No. 2763.
AMENDMENT AGREED TO, 80-17
SYNOPSIS:
- As reported, S. 625, Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1999, will enact reforms to prevent creditors who have the means of paying their debts from unjustly filing for bankruptcy, will enact reforms to protect consumers from unfair credit practices, and will enact business bankruptcy reforms. The bill is similar to the bipartisan bill considered during the 2nd session of the 105th Congress (see 105th Congress, 2nd session, vote No. 313).
- The Schumer amendment [patent’s note, to the bill described above] would prohibit the discharging of settlement agreements or of judgments, orders, consent orders, or decrees entered in Federal or State courts, if those debts were related to certain civil suits brought by abortion clinics against opponents of abortion. Specifically, civil debts would not be dischargeable: if they were related to actual or alleged violations of Federal, State, or local laws designed to protect access to abortion clinics or abortions; if they were related to actual or alleged violations of court orders or injunctions to protect access to abortion clinics; if they were related to actual or alleged violations of statutory or "common" (unwritten) law due to the debtor's "actual, attempted, or alleged harassment of, intimidation of, interference with, obstruction of, injury to, threat to, or violence against" any person, if that action was "to deter that person, any other person, or any class of persons" from obtaining an abortion(s); or if they were related to actual or alleged violations of statutory or common law due to the debtor's "actual, attempted, or alleged harassment of, intimidation of, interference with, obstruction of, injury to, threat to, or violence against" any person because that person sought an abortion or was involved in providing abortions.
- Those favoring the amendment contended:
- Our amendment will discourage violence against reproductive health care providers. Such violence has declined dramatically since passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act in 1994. Violence against reproductive health care providers reached its peak in 1993, when 437 violent acts, 3,379 acts of disruption, and 3,885 blockades were reported. Those numbers have declined dramatically. Acts of violence were down to 113 in 1998 and acts of disruption were down to 2,600. We believe that the FACE Act is largely responsible for the decline. That Act passed with broad support from both pro-choice and pro-life Members.
- Unfortunately, those extremists who resort to blockading or attacking clinics and doctors have found a new way to avoid paying civil penalties under the FACE law and other laws: bankruptcy. The worst case involves a web site called the "Nuremberg Files." The sponsors of that site were found guilty of inciting the murder and attempted murder of doctors who perform abortions, and were assessed $109 million in civil penalties by an Oregon jury. They filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying any of the penalties, and to date have not paid even one cent. This amendment would stop such misuse of bankruptcy proceedings. The right to declare bankruptcy was never intended to be used as a way of avoiding the consequences of unlawful behavior.
- Some Senators have suggested that this amendment is unnecessary because bankruptcy law already prevents the discharge of debts that are due to willful and malicious injury by the debtor. While it is true that this protection exists, it clearly is not sufficient protection because extremists across the country have been successfully using bankruptcy to erase the civil penalties that have been assessed against them. The Schumer amendment would remedy this problem. We urge our colleagues to support it.
- While favoring the amendment, some Senators expressed the following reservations:
- We oppose abortion clinic violence, but this amendment is unnecessary, unwise, unclear, and politically motivated. Still, rather than voting against it, we have decided to vote in its favor and then fight to remove its many defects when the bill reaches conference.
- No Senator should support anyone using the bankruptcy system to avoid paying for any willful and malicious injury that he or she has caused. In fact, no one may use the bankruptcy system for that purpose, whether the injury is to an abortionist or to an abortion clinic or to anyone else. That use is already illegal.
- The bankruptcy law does not concern itself with the policy motivations of the person committing the violence--an abortion opponent who bombs a clinic, an environmental fanatic who spikes a tree and causes the death of a lumber mill worker, or a union member who shoots a strike breaker are all equally denied bankruptcy protection.[patent note: exactly as it should be, political position neutral] Under this amendment, though, a brand-new, higher standard would be created that would only apply to abortionists. As a matter of public policy, we do not think that it is advisable to say that abortionists should be given a higher standard of protection than all other Americans.
- They especially should not be given that standard with vague, sweeping language that seems to be more intent on suppressing legitimate free speech rights than with discouraging violence. The amendment would not just forbid erasing civil penalties for injuries against abortionists or their clinics. It would also forbid the erasure of penalties for a litany of other offenses, none of which it bothers to define. For instance, the Schumer amendment would deny bankruptcy protection to anyone assessed a civil fine for "allegedly" breaking a "common law" in an attempt "to deter" someone from obtaining an abortion. Would advising someone not to have an abortion be the same as trying to deter an abortion under a judge's interpretation of an unwritten common law? The Schumer amendment ignores that question, perhaps deliberately.
- The sponsor of this amendment is one of only a handful of Senators who oppose this bill. A common and legitimate tactic that is used by Senators who are part of a small minority opposing a bill is to attempt to attach controversial amendments that will cause the bill to be defeated. The vague and sweeping language of the Schumer amendment appears to be calculated to cause divisions rather than to build consensus. We do not mean to question the pro-abortion credentials of this amendment's sponsor we fully accept his assurances that he would like to impose these vague and one-sided restrictions, and that he thinks it is fair to ignore similarly extreme acts by union members, environmentalists, and others who more typically vote for Democratic candidates. Another obvious political calculation that some Members may be making is illustrated by the rare presence in the Senate Chamber today of the Vice President. Clearly some Members expect the vote to be close, and may be hoping that the Vice President will be able to cast a tie-breaking, pro-abortion vote. The Vice President, who is in a close race with former Senator Bradley to see which of them will be the Democrats' presidential candidate this year, has been accused by former Senator Bradley of once having been opposed to abortion. The Vice President has denied the charge, and would no doubt welcome the chance to cast a tie-breaking vote on this issue.
- He will not get the chance. No political theater, orchestrated or happenstance, will occur in the Senate today. This amendment will pass overwhelmingly because many of us who oppose it will vote for it anyway. After the bill passes and goes to conference, we will work to fix the many defects of this amendment.
- No arguments were expressed in opposition to the amendment.
VOTING YEA:
Republicans:
(35 or 67%) Abraham Ashcroft Bennett Bond Campbell Chafee Cochran Collins Coverdell Craig Crapo Domenici Frist Gorton Grassley Gregg Hagel Hatch Hutchison Inhofe Jeffords Lott Mack McConnell Murkowski Roth Santorum Shelby Smith, Gordon Snowe Specter Stevens Thomas Thurmond Warner
Democrats:
(45 or 100%) Akaka Baucus Bayh Biden Bingaman Boxer Breaux Bryan Byrd Cleland Conrad Daschle Dodd Dorgan Durbin Edwards Feingold Feinstein Graham Harkin Hollings Inouye Johnson Kennedy Kerrey Kerry Kohl Landrieu Lautenberg Leahy Levin Lieberman Lincoln Mikulski Moynihan Murray Reed Reid Robb Rockefeller Sarbanes Schumer Torricelli Wellstone Wyden
VOTING NAY:
Republicans:
(17 or 33%) Allard Brownback Bunning DeWine Enzi Gramm Grams Helms Hutchinson Kyl Lugar Nickles Roberts Sessions Smith, Bob Thompson Voinovich
Democrats:
(0 or 0%)
VOTING PRESENT:
(1) FitzgeraldNOT VOTING:
Republicans:
(2) McCain-2 Burns-2AN
Democrats:
(0)
ABSENCE CODE: 1-Official Business 2-Necessarily Absent 3-Illness 4-other
Symbols: AY-Announced Yea AN-Announced Nay PY-Paired Yea PN-Paired Nay
Compiled and written by the staff of the Republican Policy Committee
Larry E. Craig, Chairman
FACT: Patent's #18 dissected and refuted your #16 like a surgeon's scalpel.
FACT: You responded by whining about his "hostility".
FACT: You were just trying to save face.
FACT: You're still trying, and still failing.
And I say this as someone who NEVER agrees with Patent.Well, we both believe Ted Kennedy should be excommunicated. But other than that. ;-)
patent +AMDG
(sigh).. yeah, that too. I meant what I said, I just didn't say what I meant. ;-)
No, no, no, we don't agree...
Please, patent.... YOU KEEP HIM!!
(For the love of mercy!! Show a little Roman Catholic charity to your "separated brethren" ... we don't want 'im!! We don't want 'im!!)
patent
Shaddup, I'm sick of agreeing with you already.
If I have this correct, and I may not...
in post 17. But screech on.
So why is this in a credit card/bankruptcy bill?
Free speech in peril?
Well, not to be too blunt, but your #17 wasn't correct.
However, I didn't take you to task for your #17, in which you prefaced your comments by admitting the possibility that you were Wrong (which, of course, you were).
I haven't even responded to your #17.
That with which I took issue (read my posts again, in case you somehow missed it) was your whiny cant against Patent in your #18, in which you threw up a sorry complaint of Patent's supposed abuse of you in the "hostility" of his #16... when he had done nothing more than dis-abuse you of the trite foolishness you belched out in Post #15.
I've seen Patent's hostility, Patent's hostility is familiar to me, and you did not experience Patent's hostility. He was entirely even-handed in the manner in which he took your position apart and showed it to be intellectually worthless.
In reproaching him for his alleged "hostility", I maintained you were actually just whining about being dis-abused of your arguments.
And, I continue to maintain that you are just whining.
Take that any way you like.
Good idea.
Just like suicide bombers came to be called homicide bombers!!
I just call 'em "Pro-Abortion". They're not in favor of every type of Murder, after all; they don't want to be Murdered themselves.
No, they are in favor of one specific type of Murder -- Abortion-Murder.
Sorta like the Nazis were NOT Pro-Murder in the soviet Stalinist sense... the Nazis only favored one specific type of Murder -- "Judenfrei". This region has been cleansed of Jews.
They're "Pro-Abortion". It is their Liturgy, their Sacrament, their bread and wine. It can make a pro-abort Libertarian abandon his Faith in "objective science" (i.e., the scientific study of Fetal Development), and it can make a pro-abort Liberal abandon his Faith in Human Rights, or even Animal Rights (the kangaroo rat has his hollow and the bald eagle has his nest, but the Human Fetus has no safe place to lay his head); because it is a religious thing.
It has nothing to do with Libertarian Objectivism or Liberal Human Rights. It is purely Sacramental... the Body and the Blood.
Abortion is the Rite and the Liturgy of the Left. There's really no other sensible way to understand the thinking of the Pro-Aborts.
If it was merely a policy thang, why would they care so much? Democrats flip-flop back and forth on Capital Punishment faster'n pancakes. They don't really care about the life or death of the guilty.
But Abortion?? That's a sacrifice of the innocent. That's a sacrament. Cast in this light, Schumer and his pals make a Satanic kind of sense... we're trying to take their sacrament away. That's why every other issue, even "gay rights", pales in comparison to Abortion. It's their sacrament. Their Sacrifice. Their "holy communion".
Er... okay. Remark away. By all means, don't let me stop you.
Here, have a lollipop.
E-gads.
LOL. That's not exactly accurate. There's actually a clause in the provision which makes debt arising from "intentionally damag[ing] or destroy[ing] the property of a place of religious worship" nondischargeable. I have no idea why that clause is there, but it is.
Geez, gc, are you trying to demonstrate that to which you object??
patent
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