Ah the power of a story. Don’t we love them? Whether they’re told around a campfire, passed down for generations, or told via shows on Netflix, we humans love a good story. And why wouldn’t we? They tell us something about our history, our culture, and often ourselves.
But in the political sphere, there’s often more to a story than meets the eye. Very little is ever as simple as it appears on the surface. And this has been a point of frustration personally in this primary season (heyyyyy bias).
Once again, we’re going to stick to the democratic side, as it’s where I’m more well versed. And I’m picking a story that has a lot of particular relevance to me and my interests (the joys and convenience of having a blog). That issue has to do with a specific story: the story that shows that Hillary Clinton’s vote can be bought.
I have seen narrative after narrative on social media and other such sites posting this video of Elizabeth Warren talking about Clinton switching her vote on a bill she disagreed with, implying some kind of special interests in the Senate changed her to do so. For reference, it is here.
Now this piece interests me for several reasons, and I will allow myself the digression into them.
- I love Elizabeth Warren. I loved her ever since I learned about how she was picked to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and I have followed both the CFPB and her career closely since. She is the real deal – she’s smart, outspoken, and clearly wants the best for the American people. She doesn’t take any BS – and it was a joy voting for her and now being able to call her my senator
- I read Warren’s book The Two Income Trap about 2 years ago, and it was fascinating. It talks all about how small changes over time – policy and otherwise – have made it so that families are no better off than they were in the 1950’s, except that moms now have to go to work as well as dad in order to make ends meet. Mom used to be the safety net if something happened to dad – she could always work if she had to. It’s incredible and informative and I highly recommend it. In it, she makes this similar charge against Hillary Clinton, which I will outline only briefly below.
The charge: A bankruptcy bill was about to pass Congress while Bill Clinton was president. The basic premise of the bill was going to make it harder for people to file for bankruptcy and have their debts wiped out. Warren met with Hillary to discuss the disproportionate effect this would have on women and children – an example being if a father in a divorced family filed for bankruptcy, women could be left without child support payments. So Hillary encouraged Bill to veto it, and just like that, no bankruptcy bill.
A few years later, Hillary is now a senator and the same bill comes up for a vote. And Hillary voted for it. SCANDAL. SHE RECEIVED ALL THIS WALL STREET MONEY AND NOW SHE’S CORRUPT!
That’s what I thought too. Until I did some homework. And it’s not that simple.
According to Clinton, women’s rights and other groups contacted her office and asked her to help them get certain provisions/protections attached to the bill that would make it less harmful to women and other classes. That way, if it passed, as sometimes unfavorable bills do, their interests would still be upheld. Now, take that with a grain of salt. Those are Clinton’s words that I heard on CNN.
Here’s where the facts come in. Hillary worked to get provisions added to the bill. According to a Daily Kos article, “Hillary Clinton leveraged her influence by working with other key Senators to improve the bill with provisions for women who were left without child support payments after the child’s father declared bankruptcy. Another improvement eliminated a loophole for the wealthy. An important and controversial provision to protect the safety of women and doctors at reproductive healthcare clinics was also included.”
So, in an effort to make it the lesser of 2 evils, Clinton improved the outcome of the bill for women and others. But as the story of the Senate goes, if your amendments go into a bill, you vote for it. So she did. She also included a caveat which she addressed on the Senate floor:
Let me be very clear — I will not vote for final passage of this bill if it comes back from conference if these kind of reforms are missing. I am voting for this legislation because it is a work in progress, and it is making progress towards reform.
What happened next? The bill died at the end of the session, and was reintroduced later with Hillary’s added provisions. It then went to the House, where Republicans took out her provisions, and it went into a filibuster in the Senate, which Clinton voted to uphold. When it came time to vote for the bill, Hillary was not at the vote because Bill was having heart surgery, but she released a strong statement saying she would have voted no (see references for complete text of her statement). It passed, but 74-25, meaning her vote wouldn’t have stopped it.
So what does this all say? Well, it says the story isn’t as simple as Clinton received Wall Street contributions which changed her to vote for a bill she previously opposed. Politics are complicated. She tried to improve the bill once, and as a result had to vote for it. When her improvements were thrown out, she filibustered it, and eventually “would have voted no”. Hardly seems like she really voted for it because of special interests.
So here I present a classic case of it’s not as simple as you make it out to be. This isn’t a one-sided story, and there’s a lot of danger making anything a one-sided story. The issues, and the smears, are not as black and white as we’d like them to be. Taking the extra 10 minutes to research the other side is worth the effort.
Reference: Something I Heard About Hillary Clinton is Untrue – The Bankruptcy Bill Edition by Mark Lippman (which is a great read and goes much more in-depth here than I do)
My Flawed Politics 