Strategies of Congressional Debate: Decomposing the Dynamics and Nature of the 2005 US Bankruptcy Reform Hearings

A dissertation by Candidate 58950 Toward completion of the MPA in Public and Economic Policy The London School of Economics and Political Science Key words: Democratic Process, Politics, Lobbies, Industry Capture, Automated Text Analysis, Bankruptcy, Legislative Strategy, Rent Seeking, Institutional Design Submitted: 3 May 2012 Word Count: 10,992

Abstract On April 20, 2005 the US Congress enacted the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, the most sweeping personal and corporate bankruptcy law reform in US history. Using as a data corpus the entire congressional record on debates and hearings regarding the act, I employ automated content software to empirically analyze the content, form and rhetoric of the debates leading to the passage of this very controversial act. In particular, I identify six primary classes of arguments and debate employed in Congress, and demonstrate strong evidence that the debates appear to have been heavily skewed toward serving the interests of the credit industry lobby. This broadly supports a large body of work that attempts to understand and measure the degree of industry capture on the part of the consumer credit industry as a result of this Act.

Contents page Introduction I. II. III. IV. Overview of BAPCPA Literature Review and the Theory of Lobbies, Rhetoric and Rational Actors in Politics Research Questions, Methodology and Data Results and Discussion Class 1 Goals of Reform Class 2 Emotive Appeal/Personal Impact Class 3 Credit Industry Class 4 Congress and Bipartisanship Class 5 The Judicial System/Implementation Class 6 Procedural Rhetoric Interrelation Among Classes Relation of Results to Theoretical Models and Policy Conclusion 2 8 13 17 21

V. VI.

37 40 42 44

References Appendices

And if the tenants failed to pay their rent they were liable to be haled into slavery, and their children with them. All loans secured upon the debtor's person, a custom that prevailed until the time of Solon, who was the first to appear as the champion of the people. Aristotle, 350 BC At the end of every seven years you must cancel debtsbecause the Lord's time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. Deuteronomy 15:1-2 And if someone is in hardship, then let there be postponement until a time of ease. But if you give from your right as charity, then it is better for you, if you only knew Quran, Chapter 2 Verse 280

Since ancient times, policy for the treatment of debtors unable to meet their obligations has been a core part of societal laws. The deep importance and personal nature of debt policy in societies both ancient and present speaks to the fact that debt impacts many individuals, and on a very deep level. Debt is an inevitable part of any society which transacts business. This policy is even more relevant today given the huge role of finance in society and the current economic crisis, where unemployment and debt crises are a part of everyday life. Bankruptcy is not a fun topic per se; its very nature invokes images of emotional pain, distress, and hardship. But it is an extremely important topic for all individuals, whether they file for bankruptcy or not, because bankruptcy policy in part determines consumer and corporate interest rates, and thus impacts broader economic growth via impacts on total factor productivity.1 Therefore, one must be absolutely certain that the democratic institutions

Hahn and Lim (2002).

responsible for setting bankruptcy policy on behalf of citizens are fit to the task and that interests are aligned and represented in the best possible way. Motivated by this, this paper analyzes how leaders debated and evaluated a recent and significant bankruptcy reform that passed into law in 2005, namely the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA or the Act). The goal of this paper is to more deeply and objectively understand the democratic legislative processes and institutions behind the bill. This instance is one of the few reforms where we see a return to harsher treatment of the debtor; this begs the question of just how such a reform came to pass in a representative democracy, since it would appear few individual citizens would willingly vote for such a reform that largely only made their lives potentially more painful and difficult. In short, I find that the legislative institution was in this case particularly prone to capture by an industry lobby, and that the lobby and supporting legislators succeeded in steering the rhetoric and argumentative lines of the debate in such a way as to skew the outcome heavily in the favor of the credit industry lobby at the expense of citizens and future bankruptcy filers who were greatly under-represented in the process. This under-representation was partly the result of a collective action problem and partly a result of the rhetoric of the debate. BAPCPA was met with heavy criticism and controversy; one critic went so far as to declare the bill monstrously labeled and written, bought and paid for by the credit card industry.2 Indeed the credit card industry lobby did greatly financially support the bill, so it follows that most of the existing analysis on BAPCPA attempts to demonstrate the gains to the credit card industry in the post-reform period.3 However, critics have spent far fewer resources analyzing the legislative process preceding BAPCPA and examining what one can learn about the process and the institution behind the Act. Motivated by this gap in
2 3

Congressional Record, GPO, 107th Congress (2001-2003). Some figures estimate the credit industry spent approximately $100 million supporting the Act.

the literature, the precise aim of this paper is to bridge the gap by empirically evaluating the dynamics of the legislative process and the argumentative strategies employed by various stakeholders in Congress. A further aim of this paper is to relate these events to the current political science literature on lobbies, rhetoric, and rational choice models, in an attempt to better understand to what extent these events were foreseeable and/or preventable. To my knowledge, no individual has attempted such an analysis of the BAPCPA proceedings using automated text analysis software to analyze the congressional record, a key contribution of this paper to the existing literature. Further, to my knowledge no individual has examined political science models to better understand the dynamics of the lobby as related to BAPCPA.4 BAPCPA presents a unique and valuable opportunity in which one can observe and analyze the dynamics of congress in party transition and a lobby with no clear opposition group, a rare situation in US ideological debates but one of which we must be vigilantly aware given the potential ramifications. Questions Remaining in the BAPCPA Story Several theories and judgments regarding the BAPCPA debates abound, often conflicting. The first and foremost question is just how did the US Congress come to pass a bill that so many experts deride? The most common but often least supported assessments claim that this case was a clear and simple instance of industry capture; the credit industry simply spent the money and got what it wanted. However Dickerson contends that the single industry capture story is not sophisticated enough to explain everything, and that one must look deeper to truly understand the events.5 A second line of argument considers whether the legislative proceedings were ideological in nature or technical in nature; this line contends that to the extent debates are framed as more ideological and less technical, citizen interest and participation increases, which would result in a
This work is in a similar vein to that of Schonhardt-Baileys analysis of the congressional debates on partial birth abortions (2008) and the Kerry-Bush national speeches on national security (2005). 5 Dickerson (2006).
4

more representative result.6 A third line of argument considers whether republicans and democrats systematically used differing lines and styles of argument, and to what end.7 Fourth, there is much debate as to whether the proper amount of effort was expended in order to incorporate potential future debtors i.e. the stakeholders directly opposite the credit industry lobby into the process.8 Finally, several critics contend that too much focus was placed on the overly exaggerated issue of debtor abuse and far too little focus was placed on preserving the viability and maximizing the value of the debtor; thus the debates were heavily skewed toward protecting the interests of creditors.9 A Method for Analyzing Political Debates and Discourse Given these several open questions regarding the debates, and the lack heretofore of a scientific approach for analyzing the debates, it becomes interesting to systematically analyze the BAPCPA proceedings and see what information and conclusions one can glean from a deeper, more rigorous examination. While some articles have been less formally written about the process, no researcher has yet attempted an empirical analysis of the text of the congressional records behind the Act. Automated text analysis generates an unbiased assessment of a body of text i.e. one that is not skewed by a researchers preconceptions of a debate and thus lends a statistical and scientific hand to an otherwise quite subjective analytical subject. The software program ALCESTE 4.8 offers three key tools for my purposes. First, it enables me to identify in a hierarchical fashion the key classes of words, phrases, and ideas, and assess the relative presence and therefore implicit importance of each. Second, it enables me to map these ideas spatially dependent on speaker traits (e.g. political affiliation and final vote) and degree of occurrences. classes.
Ibid. Meyerowitz (2008). 8 Ibid. 9 Dickerson (2006).
6 7

Third, it

enables me to assess the relative degree of interrelation between the various

ALCESTEs key advantage is that the programme makes no pre-conceived hypothesis about a body of text, nor does it require the researcher to do so. This analysis is top down in this manner; ALCESTE takes a body of text as given and generates the hierarchical classes of words, phrases and ideas on its own, based on a chi-squared methodology which identifies the key characteristic words and phrases based on frequency and adjacency.10 In this way, ALCESTE is primarily an exploratory tool, producing a set of unbiased analyses that the researcher then must interpret. This ensures a high degree of transparency as I provide the main ALCESTE outputs at the beginning of each section and then provide my interpretations of each.11 Purpose of this Dissertation and Key Findings The primary purpose of this entire exercise is to gain a better and more thorough understanding of the BAPCPA debates and lend an objective and scientific hand to the existing discourse on the debates. The current discourse on BAPCPA is largely anecdotal, and mainly driven by stakeholders who clearly have axes to grind. Therefore my aim is to as scientifically as possible dissect and understand the nature of the debates from an objective, academic perspective. This paper thus analyzes two main areas regarding the BAPCPA congressional debates. First, I evaluate the content, form and rhetoric of the arguments of leaders themselves leading to BAPCPA by analyzing the ALCESTE output, the main contribution of this paper. Second, I briefly explore and evaluate the extent to which these outcomes and shortcomings may have been predictable and/or avoidable by relating the results to current models and predictions of political science. In short, I do find strong support that the process was largely ineffective in focusing attention and resources on the correct priorities, and

The ALCESTE methodology is discussed in further detail in the methodology section. As this research method is relatively new, further detail of the precise algorithms and mathematics is contained in the appendices. 11 I am grateful to Dr. Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey and Dr. Aude Bicquelet of the London School of Economics for their guidance and assistance in interpreting the results.
10

therefore we ended up with a bill that not only missed its mark but also potentially enabled the credit card lobby to extract significant rents. In particular, I find that: 1) supporters of BAPCPA defined goals of the reform mainly in the vein of pointing out errors in the current system, where opponents focused on what the goals of a comprehensive system ought to be; 2) supporters argued for these main goals using interested parties, where opponents relied more on bankruptcy experts (judges); 3) supporters tended to focus on the broader societal implications of bankruptcy, where opponents relied more on arguments of pathos and ethos, potentially to their own detriment; 4) bipartisanship, while expressed as a key theme of the debates, was not necessarily well-founded or even valid; and 5) to the extent the judicial system was considered, the tone and arguments took a tone of a fait accompli and a technical argument rather than one based on ideology. These findings serve as strong evidence that the main priority of BAPCPA and its supporters was not progress in the bankruptcy system or consumer protection, but gain for the consumer credit card industry and its lobbyists. I further find that this outcome was largely predictable given the circumstances and that the US government could have pursued means to prevent this outcome. This paper proceeds as follows. First, I discuss key background information on bankruptcy and BAPCPA and key stakeholders. Second, I briefly review the existing literature on BAPCPA, and explore the relevant political scientific theory on lobbies, political rhetoric and agency models, which are useful tools for our analysis of the debates. Third, I discuss my methodologies and data in detail. Fourth, I analyze the results of the text analysis and relate the results to political science theory and policy, the main section of this paper. Finally, I conclude and discuss potential areas for further research.

I. A Brief Overview of Bankruptcy and BAPCPA What is Bankruptcy? Before I begin it is important we understand precisely what bankruptcy is, since the term bankruptcy itself is subject to fairly wide and deep misconception among the general public. Himmelstein et al (2005) provide an apt technical summary of US personal bankruptcy that highlights the main provisions of the Bankruptcy Code (the Code):
Bankrupt is not synonymous with broke. Bankrupt means filing a petition in a federal court asking for protection from creditors via the bankruptcy lawsthe court [then] assumes legal control of the debtors assets and halts all collection efforts. A courtappointed trustee convenes a meeting to inventory the debtors assets and debts and to determine which assets are exempt from seizure. States may regulate these exemptions. About 70% of all consumer debtors file under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code; most others file under Chapter 13. In Chapter 7 the trustee liquidates all nonexempt assets. At the conclusion of [a Chapter 7] bankruptcy, the debtor is freed from many debts. In Chapter 13 the debtor proposes a repayment plan, which extends for up to five years. Under both chapters, taxes, student loans, alimony, and child support remain payable in full, and debtors must make payments on all secured loans or forfeit the collateral.12 [Emphases added]

Keys points to take from here are 1) bankruptcy law is mainly about defining debtors and creditors rights under bankruptcy and protecting debtors from creditors who could otherwise seize their assets; 2) there are two distinct forms of bankruptcy, Chapter 7 and Chapter 13; 3) at conclusion of Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the debtor is freed from many debts, where under Chapter 13 debtors must repay a greater portion of their debt; and 4) thus creditors (i.e. lenders, primarily credit card companies and commercial banks) generally strongly prefer Chapter 13 to Chapter 7, which explains in part why creditors generally strongly supported BAPCPA.

12

Himmelstein et al (2005).

Background of BAPCPA in Congress BAPCPA was the most sweeping bankruptcy law reform in US history.13 The stated intent of the Act was to prevent abuse of the bankruptcy system and curtail irresponsible borrowing in order to address the rapidly increasing bankruptcy filing rates in the US. One of the key supporters of the bill, Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), argued: [The Act] will help restore responsibility and integrity to the bankruptcy system by cracking down on fraudulent, abusive, and opportunistic bankruptcy claims.14 BAPCPAs enactment marked the completion of nearly a decade of deliberation in Congress. The original bill was drafted in 1997 and introduced in 1998, and passed in 2000 under a version called the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000.15 President Clinton however employed a strategy equivalent to a veto, known as a pocket veto, rendering the Act moot.16 From 2000 forward, BAPCPA faced strong opposition and repeated threats of filibuster, primarily from Democrats. Following the significant increase in Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate after the 2004 elections, Congress finally passed BAPCPA in 2005 by large margins, 302 to 126 in the House of Representatives and 74 to 25 in the Senate. However, even this passage occurred in a controversial fashion supporters, primarily Republicans, pushed for a vote on the bill so quickly that even amendments simply requesting the correction of typos and spelling errors were denied.17 Key Reforms of the Act BAPCPAs key impact on individual citizens was that it made it far more difficult for debtors to file under Chapter 7 and instead forced more debtors to

So significant were its reforms that legislators and bankruptcy practitioners often refer to it simply as the new bankruptcy law. 14 Day (2005). 15 This long history is somewhat misleading, as the bill was often pushed aside for far more pressing issues, particularly the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Clinton impeachment hearings, and the anthrax scare. 16 Associated Press (2000). 17 These errors necessitated the Bankruptcy Technical Corrections Act of 2010.
13

file under Chapter 13.18 Banks and credit card companies strongly supported the bill since it directly resulted in higher recovery rates on debts owed them. The bill achieved this aim in two ways, first by introducing a test to assess whether the bankruptcy filing constituted abuse, and second by introducing a means-test with the intended effect of denying certain bankruptcy provisions to individuals deemed too wealthy for bankruptcy. The Act also requires debtors to complete a detailed credit counseling process. One consequence of this was that BAPCPA made it far more difficult for all individuals poor and rich alike to file for bankruptcy since the associated paperwork and legal fees increased by approximately 30-50% due to the higher stringency and complexity of the process.19 This lack of regard for the viability of the debtor was a source of great controversy, as was the credit industrys role in supporting the bill. Primary Criticisms and the Collective Action Problem Attorney Marshall J. Wolf succinctly and powerfully wrote to Senator Ted Kennedy regarding the Act in 2001 summarizing the key criticisms and sentiments of many bankruptcy experts and professionals regarding the Act:
I write concerning the latest version of a cruel hoax that has been written, bought and paid for by the credit card industry, the monstrously labeled Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2001." This billdoes not prevent abuses of the bankruptcy laws, nor does it afford protection to any consumer. The protection that members of Congress will be providing with passage of this bill will be to the credit card industry whose millions of dollars have swamped the coffers of campaign committees during the last three election cycles. This is the type of protection that is conjured up in B-grade gangster movies. Contrary to the right of working class consumers, protection of the wealthy and of the credit card industry is the only result of this bill.20 [Emphases added]

Clearly Mr. Wolf is on one extreme of the debate, however his argument effectively summarizes the key criticisms many allege of the bill, namely 1) that its core motivation was not social progress but industry interest on the part of
While BAPCPA impacted both individuals and corporations, this dissertation focuses only on BAPCPAs impact on individuals. 19 Data from the US Government Accountability Office show the average attorney fee for a Chapter 7 case increased from $712 just before BAPCPA to $1,078, while Chapter 13 filing fees increased from about $2,000 to $3,000. 20 Congressional Record, GPO, 107th Congress (2001-2003).
18

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the credit lobby and 2) that the bill largely ignored experts consensus on what a better bankruptcy system ought to look like. My analysis sheds further light onto the validity of this claim. Clearly, the credit card industry/lobby did stand to gain directly from passage of the bill, but the fact that the bill would benefit the credit card industry is in itself not a unique problem: many legislative reforms benefit certain industries and thus lobbies arise to support such bills. However, this bill in particular suffered from a unique type of collective action problem due to the nature of its stakeholders. A key distinction between this reform and most bills was that most bills have a clear opposition party of stakeholders, with each lobby serving as an effective check and balance against the other.21 In the situation of BAPCPA, there was no clear opposing lobby or interest group due to the unique nature of the opposing stakeholders involved. The key opposing party in this case ought to have been those future debtors who would face the negative ramifications of the reforms. However this group by nature does not exist because bankruptcy filers rarely (if ever) know before the fact that they will file for bankruptcy. Further, as Dickerson notes, this group is difficult to organize because the reasons for bankruptcy are so diverse, and by definition the group of overly indebted people would not have the funds necessary to fund a successful lobbying effort.22 Critics contend that this made citizens particularly vulnerable to legislative reforms as they lacked a strong defender in Congress. Key Leaders and the Polarization between Democrats and Republicans A clear line of distinction on BAPCPA arose between political affiliations, with Democrats generally strongly opposing the bill and Republicans strongly supporting the bill. Politicians strongly supporting the bill included: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chief sponsor of the bill; Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-

For example, tobacco lobbyists are opposed by health advocates; natural resource and manufacturing lobbyists are opposed by environmental interest groups. 22 Dickerson (2006).
21

11

WI), Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee; Rep. Bob Barr (RGA); Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI); and Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX). Politicians strongly opposing the bill included: Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY); Rep. John Conyers (DMI); Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA); and Rep. Melvin Watt (D-NC). appendix contains full roll calls of the final House and Senate votes. The

12

II. Literature Review and the Theory of Lobbies and Rhetoric in Politics Past Literature Analyzing BAPCPA As previously mentioned, the overwhelming majority of the studies on BAPCPA have focused on the post-reform period and attempted to demonstrate ineffectiveness and industry capture. Paik (2009) examined the impact of the Act on entrepreneurial activity.23 Neustadter (2007) examined the impact of BAPCPA on consumer bankruptcy legal activity.24 Coelho (2010) examined the relationship between BAPCPA and securities market pricing implications.25 Both Scott (2007) and Simkovic (2009) analyzed payoffs to the credit industry following BAPCPA.26 Cornwell and Xu (2011) as well as Jacoby et al (2009) explored the effect of BAPCPA on the composition of types of filings and chapter composition.27 Dickerson (2006) is the only author of whom I am aware to attempt to formally analyze the BAPCPA legislative process itself, however this analysis is written more from a legal and procedural perspective than from a political science and policy oriented perspective.28 To my knowledge, no person has attempted an empirical analysis of the debates using automated content analysis, a major contribution of this paper. Theoretical Models of Legislatures and Lobbies in Political Science To properly analyze the legislative process regarding BAPCPA and relate the Act to the broader picture, we must understand the theoretical role of legislatures and lobbies in a representative democracy. Besley and Coate (2001) provide the most salient political science framework as related to lobbying for our purposes.29 Besley and Coate employ a citizen-candidate model and specify lobbying as a

Paik (2009). Neustadter (2007). 25 Coelho (2010). 26 Scott (2007); Simkovic (2009). 27 Cornwell and Xu (2011); Jacoby et al (2009). 28 Dickerson (2006). 29 Besley and Coate (2001).
23 24

13

menu-auction as developed by Grossman and Helpman (1994).30 Essentially, the citizen-candidate model describes how policy-motivated citizens, who cannot commit to policy choices in advance, decide to become candidates for office. The menu-auction model assumes that a set of given (i.e. exogenous) lobbies competes for policymakers support by offering policy contingent favors. Combining these two models, Besley and Coate derive several interesting predictions. First, it is possible under certain conditions that lobbying has no effect on policy choices, especially if citizens delegate policymaking to a representative who neutralizes the impact of the lobby. Second, at the other extreme, lobbying can completely dominate electoral competition, meaning that a strong lobby will make certain that a candidate with any preference will produce their preferred outcome at that point, a lobby simply decides which politicians are cheapest to buy. Third, in all cases, lobbying generates rents to office holding. Estimates derived from studies of the magnitude of the effects of rent-seeking and lobbies are mixed, but all are highly material. The following table adapted from Tollison (1997) demonstrates the range of estimates.
Table 1 Estimates of the Cost of Rent-Seeking
Study Krueger Krueger Posner Cowling & Mueller Cowling & Mueller Ross Mohammand & Whalley Laband & Sophocleus Regression Based Studies Economy India Turkey US US UK Kenya India US Various Year 1964 1968 Various 1963-6 1968-9 1980 1980-1 1985 Various Rent-Seeking Costs 7% GNP 15% GNP 3% GNP 13% GCP 7% GCP 38% GDP 25-40% GNP 50% GNP Up to 45% GNP Notes trade sector regulation private monopoly private monopoly trade sector

Source: Tollison (1997). Note: Cowling and Mueller use gross corporate product (GCP) as their measure.

30

Grossman and Helpman (1994).

14

I make no particular assumption about the precise impact of lobbies or causal channels by which rent-seeking affects welfare, but instead provide this table simply to demonstrate that lobbies may have a large-scale impact on welfare and outcomes. Theories of Rhetoric and the Rational Actor Theory In analysing BAPCPA a basic understanding of the key theories of rhetoric and forms of debate is also useful in understanding the nature and relative validity of various strategies of debate. Aristotle (400 BC) outlined three general dimensions of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos.31 Per Norreklit (2003), ethos pertains to the credibility and authority of the speaker, pathos is associated with emotional appeals directed at the audience, and logos captures all arguments which use reason as their main approach, meaning not only logical arguments but also inductive and abductive arguments.32 While most politicians and leaders in Congress employ some combination of all three dimensions, within serious political discourse only logos is considered publicly acceptable.33 Members of Congress often use elements of ethos and pathos in order to make an argument more accessible (pathos) or to try and undermine the credibility of witnesses (ethos), both generally acceptable practices under the correct circumstances, however neither should be relied on to replace logos as the core of the argument.34 The idea that logos is the most legitimate strategy aligns directly with pluralist accounts of the political rational actor theory, which is prominent in politics today. The model of decision-making presented by Allison and Zelikow assumes that single actors react in response to a set of circumstances based on rational deliberations and that these actors make decisions in order to maximize the value of the final outcome of a debate according to their own beliefs and
Aristotle (400 BC). Norreklit (2003). 33 Bauer (2009). 34 Ibid.
31 32

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perception of the issue.35 This is particularly important in the case of BAPCPA because there are so many ways to view and frame the issue, and thus the way in which the issue is framed in Congress could greatly determine how individual actors perceive and value the issue. This is of further importance in the case where a lobby is involved, as individual actors facing strong incentives to seek rents may be inclined to steer away from their true policy preferences.

35

Allison and Zelikow (1999).

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III. Research Questions, Methodology and Data As stated earlier, the primary goals of this dissertation are first to analyze objectively the arguments and tactics each side employed in the debates and evaluate their effectiveness in addressing the bankruptcy issue, and second to frame these results into broader theoretical frameworks to answer whether these inputs and outcomes were largely predictable and/or avoidable. Thus we have two primary research questions. Research Question 1: What were the most characteristic arguments, rhetoric and political strategies used by various stakeholders and what do they imply about the nature of the BAPCPA debates? Methodology To answer this research question I employ computer-assisted content analysis to measure empirically and map spatially the key themes, arguments, and tones employed by various members of Congress in debating BAPCPA. I use the computer programme ALCESTE, which is uniquely suited for this precise task. This programmes key advantage over other content analysis tools is that ALCESTE is specifically designed to analyze naturally occurring textual units in a debate on one coherent topic, and do so in a systematic and holistic way, enabling the researcher to assess the relative importance of various classifications of text. The program accomplishes this by using a chi-squared criterion to derive a rough statistical classification of statements in order to identify the most characteristic words of the corpus of text, and these words can then be distinguished as groups representing various forms of discourse within the debates. I provide a detailed description of ALCESTEs algorithm and related proofs in the appendix. Preconditions to obtaining good results with ALCESTE include: 1) the text to be analysed must show a certain thematic coherence and 2) the text must be sufficiently large, a minimum of 10,000 words. My data corpus fits both of these characteristics very well as they are restricted to a particular topic this

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particular bankruptcy reform and the text analysed consists of over 170,000 words of text. Data and Text Corpus Preparation The source of the data for my text analysis is the US congressional record from 1999 to 2005 for all hearings pertaining to BAPCPA. Congress is held in the US every two years, resulting in four congresses over the period of interest. The congressional record is available in full text PDF form from the US Government Printing Office, and contains transcripts of all congressional hearings as well as written prepared statements by individuals and follow-on question and answer sessions. I converted text from all four congressional hearing sessions into a single text (*.txt) file containing all 170,000 words of dialogue in over 1,000 individual instances of speech. I then cleaned the entire body of text for spelling errors and to remove non-meaningful characters and characters which ALCESTE requires be removed ($, * and apostrophes) as these characters are used to code units of text (see below). This proved the be a labourious task, as text extracted from the congressional PDF files would often not entirely copy over correctly e.g. the phrase means-test might be recognised as ncans-tes1. In cases where a word was too ambiguous to recognise I consulted the primary document, which in all cases clarified the intended words. I then applied coding in order to indentify each individual speaker, and added in additional passive variables to each tag in order to indicate the speakers last name, political affiliation (Democrat, Republican or Independent) and final vote on the Act (Yea, Nay or Abstain).36 This aids ALCESTE in its correspondence analysis and enables the researcher to examine various dimensions of the results based on the variables (see section IV for detail). In total I manually entered over 1,100 speaker tags, one for each time dialogue changed speakers, and passive variables for each speaker.
36

For example, when Congressman Sensenbrenner speaks in the 2005 Congress, I would enter **** *Congress_2005 *speaker_Sensenbren *party_Repub *vote_Yea.

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Table 2 Texts Analyzed with ALCESTE

Hearing Bankruptcy Reform Congress 106th Hearing Date(s) 11 Mar 1999 Description Joint hearing before Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law of the House Committee of the Judiciary and the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives on H.R. 333 Hearing before the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives on H.R. 975 Pages 195 Approx. Word Count 47,830 Serial No. 106-2

Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2001 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2003 and the Need for Bankruptcy Reform Implementation of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005

107th

7-8 Feb 2001

238

64,838

No. 107-7

108th

4 Mar 2003

232

39,211

No. 108-24

109th

26 Jul 2005

Hearing before the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives Totals

43

19,246

No. 109-55

708

171,125

Source: Government Printing Office, authors analysis.

Strengths and Limitations A key advantage of ALCESTE is that due to the holistic nature of the algorithm the potential for researcher bias is minimal. The program automatically classifies the rhetorical units, and then requires the researcher to then interpret the results. Other content analysis programs on the other hand tend to require the user to select and classify certain portions of text, and therefore the researchers pre-conceived biases and opinions of the text have a strong potential to enter in the coding of the data. Another way of stating this is that ALCESTE is primarily an exploratory tool intended to analyze an impression of a voluminous data corpus. ALCESTE is not intended to be a technique for a priori hypothesis testing per se, but rather a way to better understand the themes and rhetoric of a body of text through exploration and descriptive methods.37 This is well suited to this task as my primary goal is to better understand the content, rhetoric and style of various arguments as well as the relative importance of
Manual from MY591 Workshop Applied Analysis Software, The London School of Economics and Political Science.

37

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each hierarchical classification. One limitation of ALCESTE is that it is less apt at diving deeper into specific details within the data for this purpose, I employed a manual content analysis tool known as NVivo 8 which serves as a sort of robustness check of the ALCESTE results and strengthens the validity of the results.38 Further detail of the precise ALCESTE mathematical algorithm and statistical approach is provided in the appendix. Research Question 2: Were the inputs and outcomes of this legislative process largely a) predictable and/or b) avoidable? Methodology This research question is more qualitative and conceptual in nature but important in terms of determining policy and relating my results to the broader picture. Where question 1 seeks to identify the nature of the BAPCPAs legislation, this question seeks to identify potential issues and explore whether these can be avoided in the future, and if so how. Rather than answering this question through the use of external empirical data (which could be a dissertation or thesis in and of itself), I apply the previously discussed theories of political science and the political rational actor model (see Section V) to the case of BAPCPA and see to what extent the predictions of the model match outcomes in BAPCPA. To the extent that the outcomes match the predictions, we can see that the negative effects of the legislation should have been predictable. In order to answer whether this was avoidable, I briefly examine the legislative institutional structure itself and see whether an opportunity existed to stem the process and avert any potential negative issues.

38

Kronberger (2009).

20

IV. Results and Discussion The primary results of the analysis are provided below. From the corpus of text, ALCESTE identified six distinct classes of text. The total word count for the corpus was 171,125, and of these 126,136 were unique words analysed by the programme.39 Tagged indicators designate variables characterizing a speaker, in this case name, party, and final vote on the Act. The Initial Context Unit or ICU is effectively the sampling unit i.e. a pre-existing level or division of text defined by the user. Here I have referred to ICUs as any time the person speaking changes, resulting in 1,129 such changes over the course of the four congressional sessions analysed.
Table 3 Primary ALCESTE Results
Measure Total Word Count (#) Unique Words Analysed (#) Tagged Indicators (Passive Variables, #) Number of ICUs (#) Classified ECUs (#) % of Retained ECUs Lexical Classes Distribution of Classes (%): 1) Goals of reform 2) Emotive appeal/personal impact 3) Credit industry 4) Congress and bipartisanship 5) The judicial system/implementation 6) Procedural rhetoric Figure 171,125 126,136 4 1,129 3,426 74.7% 6 24.3% 17.6% 14.7% 10.2% 7.1% 26.1% 100.0% Notes Minimum required is 10,000 Similar words are truncated to root Tags: speaker name, party, final vote Individual Context Units (change in speaker) Characteristic phrases Signifies a high degree of strength in the analysis Automatically generated by ALCESTE Percentages roughly denote the relative importance of each class Interrelation among the classes is discussed further below

The Elementary Context Unit or ECU is a gauged sentence, which the programme automatically constructs based on word length and punctuation in the sentence.40 Based on the presence or absence of words in each ECU, ALCESTE calculates matrices on which to build classifications. The programme runs two initial calculations, each using slightly different lengths for the ECU, and then selects the length that maximizes the proportion of ECUs able to be
Plurals and conjugation endings are reduced to a single word-form (e.g. the words bankrupt, bankruptcy, and bankruptcies would be reduced to the single word-form bankrup+) and nonce words (words not expected to repeat) are eliminated from the analysis this leaves a smaller word count that is analysed by the programme. 40 Schonhardt-Bailey (2008).
39

21

classified relative to the total ECUs available.41 The percent of retained ECUs metric serves roughly as a measure of the strength of the analysis, with results in the 70-80% ranges generally viewed as a strong analysis.42 measure of 74.7% falls comfortably within this range. The detailed output of ALCESTE provides a number of useful tools for conceptualizing the content of classes. Two are particularly useful: characteristic words and characteristic ECUs. The most characteristic words for each lexical class (along with their chi-squared significance) provide an indication of the theme or frame of argument that defines and unifies the class. The highest chisquared values indicate the most characteristic words. ECUs are then useful for understanding and analyzing the context of the words and the actual arguments used. Below, for each of the six classes, I present the most characteristic words and representative characteristic ECUs, analysing each class in detail based on the results. My resultant

41 42

Please see the appendix for further detail of the ALCESTE algorithm and mathematics. Ibid.

22

Class 1: Goals of Reform The most characteristic words (highest chi-square) in this class were: debtor+ (514.7), test+ (184.9), creditor+ (161.5), mean+ (142.0), reliev+ (134.8), code+ (118.1), burden+ (106.9), circumstance (94.0), asset+ (91.8), current+ (88.8), require+ (87.8), seek (86.8), chapter+ (85.4), discretion+ (84.1), create+ (83.5), plan+ (82.4), case+ (79.4), court+ (71.1), system+ (63.9), provision+ (63.8), estate+ (60.9), standard+ (60.5), dismiss+ (58.6), honest+ (53.6), section+ (53.5), abuse+ (51.8), confirm+ (50.0), bankrupt+ (49.0), repayment+ (48.3), reorganiz+ (48.3), obtain+ (44.9), discharge+ (43.0), determine+ (42.4), legal+ (40.6) and change+ (40.6).43 These characteristic words prima facie convey that this class of text is mainly concerned with establishing the general aims and goals of the reform. This class is markedly devoid of emotive or intense language. Surprisingly, words such as bankrupt+, repayment+, reorganiz+ and discharge+ appear relatively low on the list, where words such as test+, mean+, reliev+ and burden+ score extremely high. This may indicate that most of this discussion was centered around means testing as opposed to discussion of the various treatment options available for the debtors in question. A closer look at characteristic ECUs aids us in learning more about the dynamics of this lexical class. Below are highly characteristic (i.e. high chi-square score) ECUs of class 1 for both opponents and supporters of the bill. The top twenty ECUs in this class were fairly evenly divided between opponents and supporters of the Act. Chisquared scores appear in parentheses, and hash marks (#) designate words that are representative of Class 1 within each ECU.

43

Note: chi-square scores appear in parentheses. For each class, I present the highest 35 scores subject to the constraint that the score is above 45. I exclude non-meaningful words such as prepositions and articles (e.g. the, these, to, a) as well as ICU tags (e.g. *vote_NA or *speaker_Strauss).

23

ECUs characteristic of the arguments of opponents to the bill highlight their specific concerns with the Act, and tend to reflect what the aims and goals of the Act ought to consider. These arguments also emphasize the upper hand that creditors possess over debtors. It is also worth noting that the most characteristic arguments of opponents of the bill came from expert judges, who had no direct financial interest in the Act.
(33) #creditors do not have to #prove anything; #indeed, the entire #burden is on the #debtor to #prove he/ she is #entitled to #bankruptcy #relief #including that he/ she #fits within one of the #exceptions to the #means #test. [Judge Karen Gross] (30) the #bankruptcy judge should also have some #discretion to #adjust the #internal revenue service_s #expense #standards, #made applicable by #section 102, where equity #requires. the #internal revenue service #exercises #discretion when it #applies the #standards. without judicial elbow room, some #honest but #unfortunate #debtors will be #unable to #obtain #relief #under #chapter 7 and #unable to #obtain #relief #under #chapter 13. [Judge Ralph Mabey] (28) there is a #compelling reason for affording the judge #discretion in the #means #testing #formula. without it, some #honest, but #unfortunate #debtors, will be ineligible, for #bankruptcy #relief #under #chapter 7 and #unable to #obtain #bankruptcy #relief #under r #chapter 13. [Judge Ralph Mabey]

On the other side, supporters of the bill tended to focus more heavily on the current flaws of the system, the potential for abuse by the debtor, and how one must address these flaws. Of note here are that the first two ECUs come from the chairman and CEO of MBNA Bank, while the third comes from one of the few Democrats who voted in favor of the Act.
(26) to #address this #flaw, the #bankruptcy #code must be #amended so that a #debtor who needs #bankruptcy #protection will #receive it, but only to the #extent of that need. [Bruce Hammonds, Sr. Vice Chairman and CEO, MBNA Bank] (20) in fact, today, a #debtor may #discharge his or her debts without ever #demonstrating actual need for such #relief. to #address this #flaw, the #bankruptcy #code must be #amended so that a #debtor who needs #bankruptcy #protection will #receive it, but only to the #extent of that need. [Ibid] (30) this needs #based #system would #create a simple #formula, #based on a #debtor_s income and #obligations, to #determine #exactly how-much #relief the #debtor needs. #individuals with no #means to #repay their debts could file for #bankruptcy #under #chapter 7, thereby #obtaining #complete debt #relief and a #fresh #start. [Hon. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-VA]

24

In sum, class 1 reveals three interesting points regarding the debates as they relate to the current discourse on the Act. First, opponents of the bill mainly structured their arguments around what the Act ought to accomplish, discussing ideals of the system and flaws of the proposed Act, whereas proponents tended to focus more on those flaws in the existing law which perhaps not coincidentally pertained to those witnesses direct financial interests. Second, supporters of BAPCPA tended to speak in a way that presumes the guilt of the debtor citizen, whereas opponents tend to view debtors as innocent victims of society. Last, arguments characteristic of opponents tended to come from judges and bankruptcy experts with no direct financial interest, where the characteristic arguments of proponents tended to belong to witnesses who had direct financial interests.

25

Class 2: Emotive Appeal and Personal Impact The most characteristic words (highest chi-square) in this class were: people+ (234.9), dollar+ (124.6), divorce+ (111.7), home+ (94.9), famil+ (94.6), car+ (90.5), money (87.0), debt+ (84.9), file+ (84.0), family (80.8), medi+ (79.6), way+ (75.2), job+ (72.3), live+ (70.8), problem+ (70.5), children+ (67.9), pay (66.8), situation+ (66.8), thousand+ (64.3), use+ (61.3), daughter+ (59.7), purchase+ (58.9), couple (56.5), hospital+ (56.5), owe+ (54.1), cash+ (51.8), lose (50.0), simpl+ (49.5), wife (47.0), keep (46.4), hundred+ (45.3), and force+ (45.0). These words strongly convey the personal impact and compromising nature of bankruptcy. They also allude to some of the issues that cause or exacerbate a bankruptcy divorce, medical problems and job loss. characteristic ECUs again proves enlightening. Opponents of the Act relied primarily on a combination of story-based testimony from victims of bankruptcy and the personal side of bankruptcy, both on the part of experts and civil witnesses. These arguments tended to be more emotive in nature.
(40) #paying off our #medical bills was #out of the question if we were to stay current with our #mortgage and our #car #payments. this has been very #hard for all of us. two #months before we #filed bankruptcy, my #wife #lisa resigned from the postal service in order to stay #home full time and #care for our #children and oversee #annelise_s #care. [Charles Trapp, bankruptcy filer] (27) beginning their adult #lives already so deeply in #debt with credit cards that they will never be #able to #buy a #home or support a #family they are #families without #insurance and #families with too #little #insurance for the #medical catastrophes [Professor Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law School]

Examining the most

Supporters of the Act conceded there is a legitimate need for some individuals to file for bankruptcy, but focused more intently on societys treatment of debtors and the potential societal ramifications of allowing debtors to escape their debts. These arguments tended to focus on thematic elements like personal responsibility and doing ones part to contribute to society and not benefit at the expense of others.

26

(33) there are, of course, some #people who truly have a #legitimate need for bankruptcy. at #times, #hard working #families may #face a #serious #family #illness, a disability, #unemployment or the loss of a #spouse which may #necessitate the need for bankruptcy protection. [Rep. Steve Chabot, R-OH] (30) but for that sub #group of #filers, for those higher #income individuals who would #use chapter 7 to #push their #debts on to #others #regardless of the #filer_s ability to #pay, the #up front, needs based approach would have #said, no, #pay what you can #afford. [Dean Shaeffer, VP and Director of Credit, Boscovs] (29) #pay what you can #afford, and #society will #wipe #out the #rest. if individuals made less than the #median #income, or couldn_t #afford to #pay 20 percent of their #unsecured #debts, H_R_ 3150 would allow them to #file in chapter 7 without question. [Ibid] (41) this #money does not #simply disappear. the cost of these losses and #unpaid #debts are borne by #everyone #else. when an individual #declares bankruptcy rather than #pay the 300 they may #owe to boscov_s, or the #thousand #dollars they may #owe in state #taxes or other bills, they #force the #rest of us to #pick #up their expenses. [Ibid]

In sum, in class 2 we see several interesting delineations between supporters and opponents of BAPCPA. First, opponents of the bill appear to strongly depend on an argument of pathos, potentially to their detriment following a strategy closer to that they followed in class 1 may have served opponents better. Second, proponents arguments tended to draw heavily on inducing a sense of personal responsibility and accountability in the debates, which had the effect of steering the conversation away from the potential downsides to the average consumer and placing the median voter in a position of looking weak and irresponsible if he or she disagreed.

27

Class 3: The Credit Industry The most characteristic words (highest chi-square) in this class were: credit (705.4), rate+ (351.8), consumer+ (300.5), union+ (285.7), card+ (282.8), losses (264.5), percent+ (210.9), bank+ (205.9), loan+ (193.9), bankruptcies (170.1), high+ (159.6), profit+ (143.3), industr+ (138.0), increase+ (124.6), market+ (119.1), filing+ (112.7), mill+ (103.4), lender+ (97.2), saving+ (90.7), total+ (88.18), customer+ (84.9), interest+ (83.3), price+ (77.6), american+ (71.3), cause+ (70.8), service+ (68.7), recent+ (64.4), rise (63.6), loss (62.3), borrow+ (62.0), lend (61.6), estimate+ (60.6), number+ (58.5), nationwide (56.5), and low+ (54.7). These words are generally associated with credit providers and users, relating to technical aspects of lending and borrowing in the US and the nature of the bankruptcy issue the Act alleges and tries to address. Again we look to the highest scoring ECUs for further context. Proponents of the bill focused primarily in data driven arguments that attempt to demonstrate the scale and reasons for the rise in bankruptcy filings, and the consequences of having more individuals file for bankruptcy.
(58) inevitably, these #losses are passed on to all #consumers in the form of #higher #rates and #higher #prices for #goods and #services. MBNA #america #bank is the #largest #independent #credit #card #lender in the #world and one of the three #largest #credit #card #lenders overall. [Bruce Hammonds, Sr. Vice Chairman and CEO, MBNA Bank] (49) these bankruptcy #filings #generate #huge #losses. while MBNA_s #credit #card #losses have consistently been among the #lowest in the #business, this precipitous #increase in the #number of #consumer bankruptcy #filings has #impacted virtually every #lender, #large and small [Ibid]

Opponents of the bill conversely largely focused their attack on the practices of predatory lending and the profiteering nature of the credit industry:
(49) #due to #high #interest #rates of 16, 18, 20 #percent or #higher, the #lending #community has #discovered that it #profits when families get in #over their #heads. [Gary Klein, Esq. National Consumer Law Center]

28

(49) however, the #total #amount of their #credit #card debts #increased from about 11, 000 in 1994 to about 29, 000 in 1997, #largely #due to the accumulation of #interest at an #average #annual #rate of 17. [Ibid]

In sum, these arguments show us two key storylines within class 3. First, in terms of technical arguments, proponents of the bill focused mainly on losses from bankruptcy, again presuming that debtors are abusing the system and that bankruptcy is somehow avoidable. Second, opponents of the bill tended to focus more on exorbitant rates of interest than on the issue at hand chapter 7 versus chapter 13 a classic use of ethos to attack the credit industry, but not an entirely relevant argument given the circumstances, and one that may have cost opponents a degree of credibility in the debates. This line of reasoning perhaps did more to distract than to work toward a better reform.

29

Class 4: Congress and Bipartisanship The most characteristic words (highest chi-square) in this class were: congress+ (354.1), legislat+ (335.9), pass+ (308.7), house+ (288.9), reform+ (272.9), bipartisan+ (257.8), compromise+ (245.5), senate+ (200.4), conference+ (197.0), report+ (194.5), bill+ (138.8), veto+ (132.4), hearings (120.7), meaningful (113.4), vote+ (105.2), commission+ (100.6), year+ (90.6), negotiat+ (87.1), consider+ (81.6), introduce+ (79.0), urge+ (76.4), hold (74.9), identi+ (70.2), reintroduc+ (70.2), enact+ (67.3), end+ (66.1), original+ (64.8), strong+ (62.7), voice+ (60.9), balance+ (59.7), overwhelm+ (57.7), hope+ (54.8), analysis (51.1), soon+ (47.9) and predecessor+ (47.0). This set of words implies a strong value on the bipartisan nature of the bill and on the expression of a compromise and negotiation. Thus it becomes interesting to examine just what the nature of the bipartisanship dialogue was as well as the nature of these compromises and negotiations. Closer examination of the ECUs reveals some fascinating insights as far as these factors are concerned. Supporters of BAPCPA tend to strongly emphasize that the bill was a compromise that underwent extensive change as the product of bipartisan work in its early years, and then stayed essentially identical following Clintons pocket veto in 2000. These arguments also attempt to compel Congress to act quickly, implying that continuing the debate longer would not be worthwhile, a dubious claim at best.
(83) likewise after #extensive amendment the #senate #passed its #bill with extremely #strong #bipartisan #support. H_R_ 833 and 6. 625, however, had significant #differences. after #extensive #compromises between #house and #senate #negotiated from #february until the #end of #july, 2000, a #compromise #bill was #worked out which became HR 2415 in the #last #days of the 106th #congress. [George Wallace, Esq. Coalition for Responsible Bankruptcy Laws] (81) H_R_ 975 is yet a further #perfection of #legislation that has been the #subject of intense #congressional #consideration and #debate for nearly 6 #years. it is #essentially #identical to the bankruptcy #reform #legislation that the #house #considered and #passed less than 4 months ago on the #last #day of the 107th #congress by a #vote of 244 to 116. [Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI]

30

(69) #last #year_s #conference #report, while a #product of #compromise, did a good job of balancing these #issues. we #strongly #urge the 107th #congress to #pass this #compromise #bill as #soon as possible. [Kenneth Beine, President, Shoreline Credit Union]

It is worth noting here that there is an inherent contradiction in the supporters arguments. When Clinton pocket vetoed the bill in 2000, Congressmen likely voted under the strong impression that he would do so. Thus, swing voters (primarily democrats) knew that in all likelihood their votes would not ultimately matter, and so they could demonstrate support for the bill without the consequences a form of pretend bipartisanship.44 By introducing an essentially identical bill in the following Congress, proponents de facto conceded that the bill had not passed a true bipartisan test, and thus the only way the bill could pass in this Congress without major amendments is if there had been a large shift in power in the House from Democrats to Republicans, which indeed there had been. The uncertainty of not knowing how long this majority may last certainly may have had an impact on Republicans desire to pass the bill as soon as possible. As mentioned previously, even opponents requests for simple amendments to correct spelling errors and typos were denied time so that the vote could be held as soon as possible. Further, interestingly among the top 20 ECUs, proponents of the bill are the only ones to mention the word bipartisanship, whereas opponents do not use the word once. Opponents of the bill rejected the notion of bipartisanship in BAPCPA and noted that the fact that the bill was identical was the precise reason to again reject it, directly contradicting supporters claims that the fact that the bill was a repeat should be reason to support it. Further, dissenters noted that there was not ample time or forum in which to discuss dissenting views of the bill.
(59) without even convening any #conference committee wherein dissenting #views could be #voiced. #passage #occurred only after a cloture motion was defeated in late 2000. however, after #adjournment of the 106 #congress, the #president #vetoed the bankruptcy #reform act. the current #bills, S_220 and H_R333, were #immediately #reintroduced upon the convening of the #years #congress. [Marshall Wolf, Attorney, Wolf & Akers]
44

Zywicki (2005).

31

(57) H_R_ 333, this #year_s #version of the bankruptcy #bill, is #essentially a resubmission of #last #year_s #conference #report, and accordingly we #oppose it. we #strongly #urge this committee to #consider not just our #view [Damon Silvers, Esq. American Federation of Labor]

In sum, we learn many important lessons from this fourth class of text. First, supporters of the bill largely cite bipartisan efforts and compromise as hallmarks of the Act. Second, supporters of the bill largely pushed for a quick vote, likely to capitalize on the newly born Republican majority in both the House and Senate. Third, however, this alleged bipartisanship did not convince many dissenters, and opponents strongly demonstrate that the nature of the debates on amendments to the Act did not sufficiently cater to bipartisan participation. Last, without a true yea vote prior to the hasty pushing of BAPCPA through the 2005 Congress, we cannot be certain to what extent any bipartisan support truly existed pre-2005.

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Class 5: The Judicial System and Implementation The most characteristic words (highest chi-square) in this class were: judicial (439.4), program+ (386.5), unit+ (342.2), trustee+ (327.8), implement+ (291.4), district+ (253.8), office+ (242.13), appeal+ (234.7), court+ (195.8), civil+ (193.0), rule+ (177.7), enforce+ (166.0), audit+ (157), case+ (137.7), form+ (122.2), conference+ (121.1), interim (117.7), executive+ (112.1), direct+ (101.1), clerk+ (96.1), return+ (93.6), train+ (91.5), precedent+ (91.5), conduct+ (88.0), official+ (87.9), state+ (86.8), supreme (80.8), develop+ (79.6), judge+ (79.2), caseload+ (78.3), responsibilit+ (76.5), initiative+ (76.1), fraud (75.3), data (74.5), and task+ (65.5). These words imply a strong focus on the implementation and judicial side of the debate, with the top ten or so words all applying to judiciary type tasks and roles. Interestingly, the word fraud does appear here, but only toward the bottom in terms of relative importance, and abuse does not enter into the debate at all this implies that these segments of the debates were highly technical in nature, focusing on the implementation of a fait accompli rather than a discussion of how to construct the Act. This is borne out in a closer examination of the ECUs, the most characteristic of which follow below. This class of text does not break cleanly into proponents and opponents, but the ECUs do demonstrate the key administrative and implementation concerns that experts and members of Congress shared.
(86) to #re #authorize the lapsed #south #carolina #judgeship and #provide the other needed #judgeships, to leave intact the current filing #fee #structure, to #re #assign the #responsibility to compile and report financial #data and maintain #tax #returns to the #united #states #trustee #program, which is better suited to #meet these #responsibilities, [Judge Edward Becker, US Court of Appeals, 2001 Congress] (78) the routine filing of #tax #returns, however, would be problematic. #recognizing that #tax #returns are not to be made #available to the #public, the bill requires the #director of the #administrative #office to #establish #procedures to #safeguard the confidentiality of #tax #information and to #establish a system to make the #information #available to the #united #states #trustee, #case #trustee, [Ibid] (75) the #act requires the #executive #office to proactively #identify abusive bankruptcy #cases and to #conduct random #audits of #cases, as #directed by the #act. we would like

33

to know how the #united #states #trustee #responsibilities. [Rep. Hon. Chris Cannon, R-UT]

#program

will

#implement

these

(53) 225 and advanced #case #management techniques, there remains a dire need for more #judicial #resources to #handle the burgeoning #judicial workload. section 325 of the bill amends the #statutory filing #fees for chapter 7 and chapter 13 #cases and #re allocates a portion of the #revenues generated by such #fees from the #judiciary and the treasury #general #fund to the #united #states [Becker] (51) and the #executive #office of the #united #states #trustee. and as a result, #drafts of 40 to 50 #interim #rules and #forms are almost ready. [Judge Thomas Small]

As we can see, discussion dating back as far as 2001 focused on very minute details of the Act rather than on the judiciarys role in forming the Act in the first place. One could argue that given the collective action problem present, this matter should have been dealt with exclusively by judges and the court, a possibility I will discuss further in Section V. Class 6: Procedural Rhetoric The most characteristic words (highest chi-square) in this class were: chairman+ (642.1), thank+ (619), gentleman+ (299.4), question+ (145.9), minute+ (119.1), expire+ (103.2), answer+ (97.3), ask+ (90.5), chair+ (83.0), subcommittee+ (74.8), follow+ (57.7), record+ (57.3), unanimous (57.1), testify+ (55.3), consent (51.33), appreci+ (50.4), committee+ (48.7), congressm+ (46.0), and yield+ (45.2). This class of words simply reflects the procedural and formal workings of congress and bears little meaning for the purposes of our analysis. Thus we do not require a complete discussion of this lexical class.

34

Interrelation Among Classes A further useful functionality of ALCESTE is the ability to measure the degree of relation and overlap between the six various classes of text. Two outputs are primarily useful for this, the dendrogram and the spatial matrix. This first graph is schematized according to ALCESTEs descending hierarchical system. The percentage weight assigned to each class by the analysis is given to the right of the class, as well as the number of ECUs identified. The relative location of the intersection of two classes, left to right, designates the degree of relatedness for example, Class 6 is only loosely related to all other classes, where classes 1 and 5 (as well as 2 and 3) exhibit the strongest relationship in terms of the relative distance of the classes and the words within the classes.
Table 4 Interrelation Between Classes
Class % # ECUs High Class 1 24.3% 833 Goals of Reform The Judicial System / Implementation Congress and Bipartisanship Emotive Appeal / Personal Impact Degree of Interrelatedness Between Classes Medium Low

Class 5

7.1%

244

Class 4

10.2%

350

Class 2

17.6%

602

Class 3 Class 6

14.7% 26.1%

504 893

The Credit Industry Procedural Rhetoric

This second graph of interest represents the same information but spatially on a two dimensional plot, known as a correspondence analysis. The positions of the points of the classes depends on correlations rather than strict coordinates, where distance reflects the relative degree of co-occurrence (the chi-squared distance) thus the measures of the axes numerically are arbitrary in that they dont represent a concrete measure per se, but these figures do express the relative distance or overlap between classes effectively. Class numbers are

35

designated in highlights. Words near a highlighted number constitute words representative of that class of text.
Table 5 Correspondence Analysis
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 +-----|---------|---------|---------+---------|---------|---------|-----+ | | provision+ | | | | | judge+ court+ | | | abuse+section+ | | administr+. .rule+ .review+case+ | | new+ integr+ .enforce+develop+ | | justice| .#05. ..conference+task+ | | implement+unit+| .. .district+ judicialcurrent+| | executive+. . .. . tax ..audit+form+estate+ | | initiative+ clerk+...#01 temporarydebtor+ | | direct+ ...confirm+discretion+| | congress+reform+ test+ . .fiscal+ .data | | legislat+bill+ | | urge+voice+ seek. | | state+ reintroduc#04negotiat+meaningful | | vote+senate+ .. ... . mean.compromise+ creditor+ | | hope+house+ hold. | .veto+analysisstrong+ | | introduce+ pass+|original+commission+chapter+ | | testify+subcommittee | | +---.minute+hear.chair+---------lastbalance+----------------------------+ ask+.#06ire+chairman+ | | | ..gentleman+consent | | msmr question+ end+ | | | | | record+ | year+ file+job+ way+interest+ | | | children+ | | | hospital+medi+ | | divorce+couple . lose. .annelise+ | | live+thousand+ daughter+ cash+use+ | | | purchase#02 problem+pay. | | | car+ home+debt+increase+ | | up lender+ .. .nationwidedollar+ | | moneyprofit+ . lend.saving+famil+ | | cause+bank+ #03. .rate+industr+recent+ | union+mill+ ..market+lossesnumber+ | | community+ ....low+bankruptciesborrow+ | | | credit american+ | | | card+lossaverage+ | +-----|---------|---------|---------+---------|---------|---------|-----+

These charts tell us three things. First, this indicates that class related to the goals of reform (class 1) was closely related to the judicial system (class 5), and that bipartisanship (class 4) was a factor related to each of these. Second, it tells us that arguments related to emotive appeal or pathos (class 2) were most closely related to arguments related to the credit industry (class 3), rather than to the judicial system or goals of reform. Last, we see that the procedural rhetoric category (class 6) is not highly related to any other class, which we would expect to see and which also serves as a sign that the ALCESTE analysis ran correctly.

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V. Relation of Results to Theoretical Models and Policy As stated in Section II, Besley and Coate make three predictions of pertaining to the possible effects of a lobby. First, it is possible under certain conditions that lobbying has no effect on policy choices, especially if citizens delegate policymaking to a representative who neutralizes the impact of the lobby. Second, at the other extreme, lobbying can completely dominate electoral competition, meaning that a strong lobby will make certain that a candidate with any preference will produce their preferred outcome at that point, a lobby simply decides which politicians are cheapest to buy. Third, in all cases, lobbying generates rents to office holding. With regard to the first prediction, in the case of BAPCPA we can clearly see that the decision was not delegated to a neutralizing party but rather fell into the hands of a largely Republican-biased House and Senate. condition would not neutralize the impact of the lobby. Therefore, this With regard to the

second prediction, the impact of a lobby appears to be a function of 1) how well funded the lobby is and 2) the degree of competition for candidates. We know that in this case the consumer credit lobby was quite well funded, thus increasing the potential impact of the lobby. Second, we know that citizens in this case suffered largely from a collective action problem and a lack of a clear identity in terms of voting demographics; thus, even for leaders primarily concerned with satisfying a representative constituency there was no clear way to do so. Dickerson notes that several amendments were accommodated in order to cater to interests of certain interest groups, namely the elderly, veterans and people in armed forces. There are two ways to interpret this. First, we could say that these were the result of bipartisan compromise. However, my results imply that this bipartisanship was weak at best and counterfeit at worst. This lends more credence to an alternative explanation, which is that these amendments were simply another form of payment from supporters to dissenters and a way to entice them to pass the bill, since these former dissenters could now demonstrate

37

to these interest groups that they had succeeded in exempting them from the Act. Since these interest groups actually constituted a small portion of bankruptcy filers, this would come at a small cost to the credit industry lobby. Thus, the model predicts that the lobby would seek out these cheap members of Congress and buy them out, which appears to have happened. With regard to the final prediction, we can see that this clearly held true in this case in fact, this lobby perhaps generated the most rents of any lobby toward a single act of Congress. These results further support the idea that representatives will seek to influence the outcome of a debate in a way that maximize their returns. In this case, it appears that the greatest returns were measured in the form of voteseeking rather than some other measure (social welfare, etc.). Thus, in short we see that these results appear to have been rather predictable, given a case where a strong and well-funded lobby seeks to pass a bill and no clear opposing constituency exists to oppose such activity. While further testing would be necessary to prove this definitively, the results support the notion that by modeling a technical debate rather than an ideological debate, Congress was able to keep the median citizen from caring much about the reform, and thus the necessary opposition never formed. Institutional Considerations We can see from the above that the outcomes in BAPCPA appear to have been largely predictable, but the question remains whether it was avoidable. Under the current structure of the US legislative branch, the answer appears to be no. Per Article One of the US Constitution, in order for a bill to become law, it must simply pass both the House and the Senate and then be agreed to by the President. So long as a bill passes these measures, it can only be repealed by the exact same process by which it passed into law. This brings to light several interesting considerations regarding the legislative institutional structure. First, in a case where debate is clearly one-sided and

38

representativeness is questionable due to a collective action problem, should a third-party arbiter have the power to reconsider or veto a bill? Second, for bills with such a collective action problem, what can legislators do to increase the visibility of the bill and make the average citizen, who may not otherwise care about the result, care? The fact that these events appear to be largely predictable but not preventable begs that further research and consideration be given to alternative forms of governance in cases where strong industry capture and a lack of representativeness are possible.

39

VI. Conclusion This work contributes to a larger body of evidence that demonstrates some of the issues and complexity surrounding BAPCPA. I present a systematic and objective way of analysing an otherwise very difficult subject, one that is applicable in a number of other contexts, and arrive at several interesting findings related to the nature and dynamics of the BAPCPA debates. This helps in part to address some of the open questions regarding the BAPCPA story which I described in the introduction. Whereas most analyses of BAPCPA have been goal-driven, my analysis is intended to be as objective and exploratory as possible, making no pre-conceived notion of the BAPCPA story. In short, I find that the content of the BAPCPA debates can be broadly classified into six classes. Most importantly, these classes show that: 1) supporters defined goals of the reform mainly in the vein of pointing out errors in the current system, where opponents focused on what the goals of a comprehensive system ought to be; 2) supporters argued for these main goals using interested parties, where opponents relied more on bankruptcy experts (judges); 3) supporters tended to focus on the broader societal implications of bankruptcy, where opponents relied more on arguments of pathos and ethos, potentially to their own detriment; 4) bipartisanship, while expressed as a key theme of the debates, was not necessarily well-founded or even valid; and 5) to the extent the judicial system was considered, the tone and arguments took a tone of a fait accompli and a technical argument rather than one based on ideology. These observations are summarized below by class.

40

Table 6: Main Conclusions and Implications of Text Analysis

Class Class 1 Goals of Reform Key Characteristic Arguments / Areas of Debate Supporters Current flaws of the system and potential for abuse; main arguments were by those with direct financial interests Societal ramifications of bankruptcy; morality and responsibility of debtors Opponents The upper hand position of creditors; main arguments were by judges with no direct financial interest Supporters Presumed the 'guilt' of the debtors; invoked that bankruptcy must be for 'need' Rhetoric / Tone Opponents Focused on what the Act 'ought' to consider; viewed debtors as victims of society

Class 2 Emotive Appeal / Personal Impact

Story based testimony from More matter of fact and Highly emotive (pathos ) victims of financial almost condescending; style tone hardship; demonstrating treats debtors in a low light the 'need' for bankruptcy protection Predatory lending by credit Again presumed 'guilt' of providers the debtors; imply that bankruptcy is many times avoidable Reject the notion of bipartisanship; institutional flaws (no opportunity to dissent) Similar to supporters NM Heavy emphasis on bipartisanship, but illfounded Formal and technical NM Attacking tone ( ethos ) against the credit industry lobby Largely angry/disappointed

Class 3 The Credit Industry

Rise of bankruptcy filings and the growing problem; societal ramifications Act represents significant compromise; compel Congress to act quickly

Class 4 Congress and Bipartisanship

Class 5 The Judicial System / Strong focus on Implementation implementation Class 6 Procedural Rhetoric NM

Similar to supporters NM

Relating these results back to the political science literature and policy implications, this work suggests that these effects were largely predictable, and thus the question remains how to address such situations in the future. Possible solutions include a system of detection within the government to monitor stakeholders and representativeness in key reforms and increasing the visibility of key reforms among citizens in situations where citizens may be underrepresented due to a collective action problem. Each of these areas represents a potentially interesting area of further research in institutional design and effectiveness. Another potential area of research would be to run similar analyses on other acts of Congress and see to what extent these results coincide with other acts. A further interesting potential area of research would be to compare among several acts of Congress the style and tone of arguments by Republicans and Democrats and see whether any significant patterns emerge.

41

References
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. Allison, G. and Zelikow, P. (1999). Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Macmillan. Aristotle. (400 BC). The Art of Rhetoric (H. Lawson, Trans. 1991 ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Associated Press. (2000) December 19, 2000: Clinton Vetoes Bankruptcy Bill. Washington: Associated Press. Bauer, M. (2009). Lecture on Content Analysis. London: London School of Economics. Besley, T. and Coate, S. (2001). Lobbying and Welfare in a Representative Democracy. Review of Economic Studies (2001) v. 68, pp. 67-82. Coelho, L. (2010). Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act: Friend or Foe? (Working Draft). Portugal: School of Economics: University of the Algarve. Congressional Record, 107th Congress. (2001-2003). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. Cornwell, C. and Xu, B. (2011). The Effect of BAPCPA on Consumer Bankruptcy Filings and Chapter Composition. Athens: University of Georgia. Day, K. (2005). Bankruptcy Bill Passes: Bush Expected to Sign. The Washington Post, [online] Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A536882005Apr14.html [Accessed 15 April 2012]. Dickerson, A.M. (2006). Regulating Bankruptcy: Public Choice, Ideology, & Beyond. St. Louis: Washington University Law Review. Government Accountability Office. (2008). Dollar Costs Associated with the Bankruptcy Abuse and Prevention Act of 2005. Washington, D.C.: Government Accountability Office. Grossman, A, and Helpman, E. (1994). Protection for Sale. American Economic Review, v. 84, pp. 833-850. Hahn, Y. and Lim, C.H. (2002). Bankruptcy Policy Reform and Total Factor Productivity Dynamics in Korea. NBER Working Paper No. 9810. Himmelstein, D. et al. (2005). Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy. Health Affairs, web exclusive, W5-63. Holh, K. et al. (2011). Manual from MY 591: Workshop in Applied Analysis Software: Introduction to Alceste. London: London School of Economics. Jacoby, M. et al. (2009). Personal Bankruptcy Decisions Before and After Bankruptcy Reform. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina School of Law. Kronberger, N. (2009). Personal Communication. In T. Kuchen (Ed.). London: LSE Methodology Institute. Meyerowitz, S. (2008). Bankruptcy Lawyers Free Speech Rights Prevail in Challenge to BAPCPA Provision. Pratts Journal of Bankruptcy Law, Nov.-Dec. 2008, pp. 734-748. Neustadter, G. (2007). Advertising by Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys after BAPCPA. Norton Annual Survey of Bankruptcy Law, 2007 edition. Norreklit, H. (2003). The Balanced Scorecard: What is the Score? A Rhetorical Analysis of the Balanced Scorecard. Accounting, Organizations & Society, v. 28, pp. 591-619. Paik, Y. (2009). Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 and Entrepreneurial Activity. Los Angeles: University of Southern California. Schonhardt-Bailey, C. (2005). Measuring Ideas More Effectively: An Analysis of Bush and Kerrys National Security Speeches. Political Science and Politics: v. 38(3), pp. 701711. Schonhardt-Bailey, C. (2008). The Congressional Debate on Partial-Birth Abortion: Constitutional Gravitas and Moral Passion. British Journal of Political Science, v. 38, pp. 383-401. Scott, R.H. (2007). Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005: How the Credit Card Industrys Perserverence Paid Off. Journal of Economic Issues, v. XLI, No. 4, December 2007.

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25. 26. 27. 28.

Simkovic, M. (2009). The Effect of BAPCPA on Credit Card Industry Profits and Prices. American Bankruptcy Law Journal, v. 83, 2009, pp. 1-26. Tollison, R.D. (1997). Rent Seeking, in Dennis C. Mueller (eds.) Perspectives on Public Choice: A Handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. White, M. (2007). Bankruptcy Reforms and Credit Cards. Journal of Economic Perspectives, v. 21, number 4, Fall 2007 pp. 175-199. Zywicki, T. (2005). Credit Cards and BAPCPA. ExpressO, [Online] Available at: <http://works.bepress.com/todd_zywicki/3/> [Accessed 15 April 2012].

43

Appendices Appendix A: ALCESTE Methodology45 ALCESTE is textual analysis software that identifies a speakers association of ideas and main arguments ideas and arguments which can then be correlated with the speakers characteristics (party affiliation, constituency characteristics and so on). The package relies upon co-occurrence analysis, which is the statistical analysis of frequent word pairs in a text corpus. ALCESTE was developed by Max Reinert and has been applied in sociology and psychology, and in political science. It has been described as a methodology in so far as it integrates a multitude of highly sophisticated statistical methods, and: Taken together, the program realizes a complex descending hierarchical classification combining elements of different statistical methods like segmentation, hierarchical classification and dichotomization based on reciprocal averaging or correspondence analysis and the theory of dynamic clouds. More simply, it may be described as a marriage of textual and statistical analysis. There are two preconditions for good results with ALCESTE: (1) the textual data must be consistent within the whole (for example, themes and conditions of production are both consistent); and (2) the text must be large enough for the statistical output to be relevant (with a minimum of 10,000 words). The software is particularly adept at analysing naturally occurring (or non-reactive) textual data. ALCESTE determines word distribution patterns within a text, with the objective being to obtain a primary statistical classification of simple statements (or contextual units) in order to reveal the most characteristic words, which in turn can be distinguished as word classes that represent different forms of discourse concerning the topic of the text. Through its dictionary, ALCESTE prepares the text by reducing different forms of the same word (in the form of
45

The following excerpt is from Schonhardt-Bailey (2008).

44

plurals, suffixes, etc.) to the root form and transforms irregular verbs to the indicative, thereby producing a matrix of reduced forms. It also subdivides the corpus into function words (articles, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns and auxiliary verbs) and content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs). The content words are understood to carry the meaning of the discourse and the final analysis is based on these. (Content words are sometimes referred to as the meaningful words.) The program creates a data matrix (an indicator matrix) which allows an analysis of statistical similarities and dissimilarities of words in order to identify repetitive language patterns. This matrix relates relevant words in columns and contextual units in rows, so that if a given word is present, a 1 is entered in the cell; otherwise, the entry is 0. Then, using descending hierarchical classification analysis, the program identifies word classes. (The term class is used for descending hierarchical classification analysis while the term cluster is used for the more traditional ascending cluster analysis.) The first class comprises the total set of contextual units in the initial indicator matrix. The program then attempts to partition that class into two further classes that contain different vocabulary and ideally do not contain any overlapping words. The methods used for this are optimal scaling and the adoption of a maximum chi-squared criterion for cutting the ordered set of words. ALCESTE compares the distribution of words in each of the two new classes with the average distribution of words. Different forms of discourse that use different vocabulary will result in an observed word distribution that deviates systematically from one where the words are independent of each other. The procedure searches for maximally separate patterns of co-occurrence between the word classes. The chisquared criterion is thus used as a measure of the relationship that exists between words, rather than as a test. Following an iterative process, the descending hierarchical classification method decomposes the classes until a predetermined number of iterations fails to result in further divisions. With each step, the descending hierarchical classification uses the first factor of the factorial analysis of correspondences; its top-down

45

analysis while the term cluster is used for the more traditional ascending cluster analysis.)71 The rst class comprises the total set of contextual units in the initial indicator matrix. The program then attempts to partition that class into two further classes that contain different vocabulary and ideally do not contain any overlapping words. The methods used for this are optimal scaling and the adoption of a maximum 2 criterion for cutting the ordered set of words. ALCESTE compares the distribution of words in each of the two new classes with the average distribution of words. Different forms of discourse that use different vocabulary will result in an observed word distribution that deviates systematically from one where the words are independent of each other. The procedure searches for maximally separate patterns of 2 design thusbetween allowsthe itword to eliminate artefacts. The result of isthe a relationship hierarchythat of co-occurrence classes. The class criterion is thus used as a measure exists between words, rather than as a test. classes, which may process, be schematized as a tree diagram. The classification follows Following an iterative the descending hierarchical classication method decomposes the classes until a predetermined number of iterations fails to result in further divisions. With each step, the descending a specified procedure using chi-squared, and may be illustrated using hierarchical classication uses the rst factor of the factorial analysis of correspondences; its top-down 72 design thus allows it to eliminate class artefacts. The result is a hierarchy of classes, which may be Kronberger and Wagners example of the decomposition of an original matrix schematized as a tree diagram. The classication follows a specied procedure using 2, and may be illustrated using Kronberger and into two classes (see table below). Wagners example of the decomposition of an original matrix into two classes (see Table 4).73

TABLE

Decomposition of a matrix
Specic vocabulary of Class 2 food fruit 12 0 12

Exhibit A1 Decomposition of a Matrix

Overlapping vocabulary say 20 21 41 word j k2j k3j kj

Specic vocabulary of Class 3 cure 0 33 33 cancer 0 20 20 k2 k3 k

Class 2 Class 3

45 0 45

Classes 2 and 3 are optimally separate in that they have as little overlap in
70

words as possible. The numbers in the table (k2j ,k ) maximum indicate frequency of 3ja units with reference to punctuation and the length of the statement up to ofthe 250 characters.
72 contextual units for each class containing a specific word j. In our example, class Max Reinert, correspondence with author, 24 October 2006. 71

For ALCESTE, statements are dened as contextual units. The program automatically determines contextual Kronberger and Wagner, Keywords in Context, p. 308. Kronberger and Wagner, Keywords in Context, p. 309.

2 consists of statements containing words like food and fruit, while words like cancer and cure are typical for class 3. Of course, it will rarely be possible to separate statements such that words occurring in one class do not appear in the other. There will always be some overlapping vocabulary, like the word say in the example.

73

The Congressional Debate on Partial-Birth Abortion

409

Classes 2 and 3 are optimally separate in that they have as little overlap in words as possible.

chi-squared rocedure then establishes out of all possible procedures TheThe numbers in the table ( k2j, k3j) indicate the frequency of contextual units for each class containingtwo a specic word j. In our example, class 2 consists of statements containing words like food and fruit, while words like classes that maximize the following criterion: cancer and cure are typical for class 3. Of course, it will rarely be possible to separate statements such that words occurring in one class do not appear in the other. There will always be some overlapping vocabulary, like the word say in the example.74
The 2 procedure then establishes out of all possible procedures two classes that maximize the following criterion:
Exhibit A2 Chi-Squared Maximisation Criterion

kk kk k , where k k ; k k ; k k k .
2

k2k3

2j 2

3j 3

jJ

2j

ij

2j

2j

3j

i I2

i I1

A P P E N D I X 2 : C O R R E S P O N D E N C E A N A L Y S I S O F C L A S S E S F O R S E N A T E D E B A T E S, REPRESENTATIVE WORDS

Figure 4, overleaf, provides a more detailed correspondence graph of the representative words in the 46 the analysis. This graph allows us to visualize the spread and overlap of the representative words from analysis. The white dots represent the centre point for each graph (as depicted in Figure 3), while the shaded areas help to illustrate the dispersion of each class.

Appendix B: Class 1 Detailed Hierarchy

Classification double 121 - Classification ascendante Khi2=31 Khi2=30 Khi2=92 Khi2=61 Khi2=36 Khi2=31 Khi2=20 Khi2=30 Khi2=23 Khi2=24 Khi2=27 Khi2=22 Khi2=64 Khi2=89 Khi2=26 Khi2=30 Khi2=87 Khi2=33 Khi2=162 Khi2=53 Khi2=26 Khi2=118 Khi2=25 Khi2=135 Khi2=45 Khi2=515 Khi2=64 Khi2=49 Khi2=59 Khi2=31 Khi2=23 Khi2=25 Khi2=22 Khi2=41 Khi2=38 Khi2=43 Khi2=39 Khi2=30 Khi2=28 Khi2=28 Khi2=36 Khi2=22 Khi2=27 Khi2=26 Khi2=26 Khi2=48 Khi2=34 Khi2=50 Khi2=82 Khi2=48 Khi2=85 Khi2=88 Khi2=188 Khi2=25 Khi2=42 Khi2=35 Khi2=23 Khi2=27 Khi2=107 Khi2=23 Khi2=31 Khi2=94 Khi2=29 Khi2=84 Khi2=54 Khi2=52 Khi2=34 Khi2=35 Khi2=60 Khi2=34 Khi2=84 Khi2=41 Khi2=27 Khi2=28 Khi2=20 Khi2=142 Khi2=185 Khi2 515 412 309 206 103 Formes prefer+ lien+ asset+ estate+ proper+ resident+ stay+ goal+ fraudulent+ intent+ exempt+ fail+ provision+ current+ law+ individual+ seek. protect+ creditor+ section+ amend+ code+ whole reliev+ obtain+ debtor+ system+ bankrupt+ dismiss+ motion+ grant+ agree+ better legal+ give. discharge+ make. claim+ reclamation vendor+ petition+ allow+ dispute+ litig+ process+ reorganiz+ businesses+ confirm+ plan+ repayment+ chapter+ require+ under sufficient+ determine+ base+ formula+ elig+ burden+ proof prove circumstance+ special+ discretion+ honest+ abuse+ presumption determin+ standard+ expense+ create+ change+ repay. mechanism+ respect+ mean. test+

24.31%

Classe 1

47

Appendix C: Class 2 Detailed Hierarchy

Classification double 121 - Classification ascendante Khi2=235 Khi2=24 Khi2=84 Khi2=67 Khi2=17 Khi2=19 Khi2=75 Khi2=48 Khi2=25 Khi2=13 Khi2=30 Khi2=13 Khi2=80 Khi2=34 Khi2=81 Khi2=21 Khi2=18 Khi2=24 Khi2=27 Khi2=95 Khi2=70 Khi2=13 Khi2=50 Khi2=72 Khi2=46 Khi2=21 Khi2=32 Khi2=91 Khi2=59 Khi2=85 Khi2=12 Khi2=67 Khi2=61 Khi2=34 Khi2=16 Khi2=54 Khi2=17 Khi2=87 Khi2=49 Khi2=52 Khi2=15 Khi2=16 Khi2=13 Khi2=38 Khi2=23 Khi2=57 Khi2=11 Khi2=15 Khi2=29 Khi2=62 Khi2=30 Khi2=40 Khi2=32 Khi2=23 Khi2=36 Khi2=29 Khi2=16 Khi2=14 Khi2=90 Khi2=41 Khi2=47 Khi2=20 Khi2=112 Khi2=17 Khi2=36 Khi2=68 Khi2=32 Khi2=24 Khi2=12 Khi2=60 Khi2=22 Khi2=45 Khi2=125 Khi2=64 Khi2=71 Khi2=45 Khi2=95 Khi2=35 Khi2=21 Khi2=19 Khi2=33 Khi2=23 Khi2=16 Khi2=30 Khi2=56 Khi2=27 Khi2=28 Khi2=20 Khi2 235 188 141 94 47 Formes people+ walk+ file+ situation+ aggressive+ life way+ out easy using trying save+ medi+ income+ family+ young+ budget+ earn+ wage+ home+ problem+ can_t lose. job+ keep. living nondischarge+ car+ purchase+ debt+ unsecured pay. use+ everyone+ declare+ owe+ rest+ money simpl+ cash+ expensive person+ place+ gaming safe+ couple get. maybe filer+ up run. health+ insurance around compan+ child+ mortgage+ payment+ annelise+ lisa+ wife care+ divorce+ women+ parent+ children+ woman+ able mention+ daughter+ talk+ hundred+ dollar+ thousand+ live+ force+ famil+ face+ hard+ time+ serious+ illness unemploy+ spend. hospital+ kid+ buy. help+

17.57% Classe 2

48

Appendix D: Class 3 Detailed Hierarchy

Classification double 121 - Classification ascendante Khi2=24 Khi2=119 Khi2=45 Khi2=64 Khi2=28 Khi2=301 Khi2=160 Khi2=40 Khi2=30 Khi2=45 Khi2=55 Khi2=32 Khi2=22 Khi2=23 Khi2=125 Khi2=211 Khi2=88 Khi2=64 Khi2=113 Khi2=30 Khi2=22 Khi2=170 Khi2=58 Khi2=45 Khi2=40 Khi2=20 Khi2=33 Khi2=40 Khi2=31 Khi2=32 Khi2=20 Khi2=20 Khi2=47 Khi2=31 Khi2=78 Khi2=30 Khi2=264 Khi2=29 Khi2=56 Khi2=44 Khi2=103 Khi2=30 Khi2=71 Khi2=20 Khi2=61 Khi2=36 Khi2=51 Khi2=30 Khi2=85 Khi2=35 Khi2=24 Khi2=29 Khi2=71 Khi2=31 Khi2=46 Khi2=47 Khi2=62 Khi2=69 Khi2=36 Khi2=26 Khi2=286 Khi2=49 Khi2=41 Khi2=138 Khi2=31 Khi2=23 Khi2=91 Khi2=40 Khi2=25 Khi2=194 Khi2=83 Khi2=352 Khi2=705 Khi2=97 Khi2=34 Khi2=36 Khi2=283 Khi2=41 Khi2=62 Khi2=62 Khi2=53 Khi2=42 Khi2=22 Khi2=206 Khi2=143 Khi2 705 564 423 282 141 Formes see. market+ solicit+ recent+ trend+ consumer+ high+ unprecedented growth grow. low+ econom+ figure+ level+ increase+ percent+ total+ rise. filing+ reach+ increasing+ bankruptcies number+ double+ decade center+ national+ associat+ trade federation+ larg+ represent+ retail+ sale+ price+ continue+ losses cost. nationwide over mill+ approximately american+ each estimate+ household+ average+ board customer+ account+ line+ decline+ cause+ crisis experiencing local loss service+ financ+ refer+ union+ member+ charge+ industr+ minimum impact+ saving+ decrease+ cooperat+ loan+ interest+ rate+ credit lender+ offer+ issu+ card+ student+ borrow+ lend. community+ companie+ institution+ bank+ profit+

14.71% Classe 3

49

Appendix E: Class 4 Detailed Hierarchy

Classification double 121 - Classification ascendante Khi2=87 Khi2=18 Khi2=0 Khi2=246 Khi2=23 Khi2=79 Khi2=65 Khi2=66 Khi2=0 Khi2=26 Khi2=19 Khi2=76 Khi2=48 Khi2=82 Khi2=15 Khi2=44 Khi2=41 Khi2=0 Khi2=0 Khi2=31 Khi2=0 Khi2=31 Khi2=60 Khi2=30 Khi2=51 Khi2=34 Khi2=27 Khi2=0 Khi2=101 Khi2=39 Khi2=30 Khi2=29 Khi2=31 Khi2=70 Khi2=34 Khi2=58 Khi2=20 Khi2=61 Khi2=132 Khi2=41 Khi2=309 Khi2=105 Khi2=289 Khi2=200 Khi2=139 Khi2=39 Khi2=351 Khi2=91 Khi2=70 Khi2=37 Khi2=197 Khi2=195 Khi2=63 Khi2=40 Khi2=258 Khi2=18 Khi2=273 Khi2=12 Khi2=354 Khi2=336 Khi2=47 Khi2=39 Khi2=0 Khi2=121 Khi2=25 Khi2=75 Khi2=13 Khi2=0 Khi2=0 Khi2=16 Khi2=0 Khi2=0 Khi2=55 Khi2=45 Khi2=24 Khi2=0 Khi2=16 Khi2=0 Khi2=37 Khi2=0 Khi2=27 Khi2=12 Khi2=0 Khi2=67 Khi2=0 Khi2=113 Khi2=30 Khi2=0 Khi2 354 283 212 141 70 Formes negotiat+ differ+ result+ compromise+ extens+ introduce+ original+ end+ day+ view+ oppose+ urge+ soon+ consider+ essential+ debate+ floor cap+ homestead+ consistent+ happen+ approach balance+ fair+ analysis mark+ careful+ begin. commission+ numerous october product+ major+ identi+ virtually overwhelm+ previous+ voice+ veto+ president+ pass+ vote+ house+ senate+ bill+ work+ last year+ reintroduc+ version+ conference+ report+ strong+ support+ bipartisan+ session+ reform+ today+ congress+ legislat+ predecessor+ congresses issue+ hearings subject+ hold. bring. course+ future+ attent+ focus+ look+ hope+ rush clos+ long+ appear+ add+ leader+ close+ note+ present+ believe+ enact+ import+ meaningful achieve+ best

10.22% Classe 4

50

Appendix F: Class 5 Detailed Hierarchy

Classification double 121 - Classification ascendante Khi2=138 Khi2=53 Khi2=101 Khi2=24 Khi2=43 Khi2=254 Khi2=57 Khi2=196 Khi2=235 Khi2=91 Khi2=33 Khi2=22 Khi2=26 Khi2=0 Khi2=24 Khi2=12 Khi2=12 Khi2=27 Khi2=11 Khi2=45 Khi2=28 Khi2=78 Khi2=79 Khi2=65 Khi2=291 Khi2=50 Khi2=37 Khi2=31 Khi2=16 Khi2=80 Khi2=91 Khi2=33 Khi2=49 Khi2=24 Khi2=439 Khi2=118 Khi2=25 Khi2=88 Khi2=81 Khi2=18 Khi2=122 Khi2=178 Khi2=32 Khi2=15 Khi2=17 Khi2=0 Khi2=94 Khi2=63 Khi2=112 Khi2=242 Khi2=60 Khi2=96 Khi2=44 Khi2=44 Khi2=76 Khi2=75 Khi2=47 Khi2=157 Khi2=88 Khi2=64 Khi2=43 Khi2=27 Khi2=386 Khi2=45 Khi2=64 Khi2=342 Khi2=87 Khi2=328 Khi2=64 Khi2=31 Khi2=39 Khi2=15 Khi2=28 Khi2=18 Khi2=24 Khi2=0 Khi2=59 Khi2=53 Khi2=22 Khi2=12 Khi2=22 Khi2=75 Khi2=76 Khi2=193 Khi2=166 Khi2 439 351 263 175 87 Formes case+ new+ direct+ general+ circuit district+ review+ court+ appeal+ precedent+ author+ manage+ carolina+ great+ addit+ position+ extend+ recommend+ regard+ request+ additional+ caseload+ judge+ temporary implement+ act+ meet. effect+ include+ develop+ train+ draft+ public+ final+ judicial interim approve+ official+ supreme propose+ form+ rule+ procedure+ establish+ avail+ inform+ return+ tax executive+ office+ administr+ clerk+ fee+ judiciary responsibilit+ data collect+ audit+ conduct+ statutory identify+ fund+ program+ provide+ justice unit+ state+ trustee+ federal+ staff+ attorney+ matter+ assist+ involve+ carry+ necessary fiscal+ integr+ enhance+ contain+ effort+ fraud initiative+ civil+ enforce+

7.12%

Classe 5

51

Appendix G: Class 6 Detailed Hierarchy

Classification double 121 - Classification ascendante Formes colleague+ north hear. welcome subcommittee+ commercial okay moment+ mabey testify+ behalf senator+ gekas+ grassley honor+ joint+ referr+ strauss+ follow+ prepar+ york nadler sensenbrenner committee+ con+ michigan congressm+ cannon open+ remark+ watt+ rank+ distinguish+ nuss kenner accommod+ virginia laude+ university+ california+ democrat+ hammonds+ senior+ vice sheaffer delaware+ pennsylvania+ afternoon+ beckwith+ beine wisconsin appreci+ opportunity+ please answer+ question+ happy morning friedman glad panel+ witnesse+ testimon+ ask+ witness consent unanimous record+ object+ mr want+ chairman+ thank+ chair+ recess+ minute+ finish+ light. red presence massachusetts delahunt gentlewoman+ texas expire+ gentleman+ yield+ ms wallace+ pleas+ respond+ discuss+ josten+ chabot join+

Khi2=31 Khi2=18 Khi2=60 Khi2=44 Khi2=75 Khi2=24 Khi2=60 Khi2=20 Khi2=13 Khi2=55 Khi2=34 Khi2=40 Khi2=27 Khi2=23 Khi2=12 Khi2=20 Khi2=14 Khi2=35 Khi2=58 Khi2=41 Khi2=52 Khi2=44 Khi2=51 Khi2=49 Khi2=42 Khi2=47 Khi2=46 Khi2=23 Khi2=31 Khi2=26 Khi2=28 Khi2=23 Khi2=18 Khi2=33 Khi2=18 Khi2=15 Khi2=24 Khi2=23 Khi2=25 Khi2=13 Khi2=18 Khi2=13 Khi2=15 Khi2=34 Khi2=26 Khi2=18 Khi2=18 Khi2=35 Khi2=20 Khi2=45 Khi2=20 Khi2=50 Khi2=44 Khi2=18 Khi2=97 Khi2=146 Khi2=31 Khi2=33 Khi2=31 Khi2=18 Khi2=35 Khi2=43 Khi2=14 Khi2=90 Khi2=38 Khi2=51 Khi2=57 Khi2=57 Khi2=34 Khi2=1119 Khi2=26 Khi2=642 Khi2=619 Khi2=83 Khi2=15 Khi2=119 Khi2=18 Khi2=21 Khi2=25 Khi2=26 Khi2=37 Khi2=30 Khi2=37 Khi2=18 Khi2=103 Khi2=299 Khi2=45 Khi2=99 Khi2=50 Khi2=18 Khi2=16 Khi2=21 Khi2=20 Khi2=31 Khi2=26 Khi2 1119 895 671 447 223

26.07%

Classe 6

52

Classification double 121 - Classification descendante

3426 u.c.e. classes

7.12% 10.22% 14.71% 17.57%

26.07%

24.31%

Classe 1
Eff. 84 44 49 54 53 27 29 35 28 29 64 20 84 36 42 22 16 14 57 29 29 29 39 9 15 18 10 16 7 7 13 15 10 61 10 16 33 7 23 9 19 18 6 6 8 9 9 19 15 congress+ 354.11 last 350.59 legislat+ 335.88 pass+ 308.69 house+ 288.88 reform+ 272.85 bipartisan+ 257.76 compromise+ 245.51 senate+ 200.37 conference+ 196.98 report+ 194.54 H_R_ 149.87 bill+ 138.83 veto+ 132.41 hearings 120.66 meaningful 113.38 vote+ 105.15 commission+ 100.56 year+ 90.55 negotiat+ 87.1 consider+ 81.61 introduce+ 78.98 urge+ 76.37 hold. 74.87 this 70.89 identi+ 70.19 reintroduc+ 70.19 enact+ 67.33 end+ 66.05 original+ 64.77 strong+ 62.7 voice+ 60.89 balance+ 59.69 overwhelm+ 57.67 hope+ 54.79 analysis 51.1 *vote_Abstai 47.94 soon+ 47.91 *vote_yea 47.9 was 47.62 predecessor+ 47.01 rush 44.91 debate+ 43.99 *speaker_Gra43.99 bankrupt+ 41.34 president+ 40.81 it 40.75 floor 40.71 support+ 40.13 94 87 98 63 63 94 37 32 43 58 58 55 115 15 22 15 20 20 85 11 36 24 15 19 145 10 10 22 21 14 23 8 27 13 19 11 13 10 17 58 8 7 11 11 168 17 110 9 39 people+ 234.92 *speaker_Tra 195.83 their 147.92 dollar+ 124.6 they 118.94 divorce+ 111.7 home+ 94.85 famil+ 94.57 car+ 90.51 annelise+ 89.63 money 87.03 debt+ 84.91 file+ 83.96 family+ 80.79 medi+ 79.59 way+ 75.23 job+ 72.25 live+ 70.82 problem+ 70.45 children+ 67.85 pay. 66.75 situation+ 66.75 thousand+ 64.28 up 61.9 use+ 61.29 daughter+ 59.71 purchase+ 58.9 couple 56.54 hospital+ 56.49 *vote_NA 54.33 *party_NA 54.33 owe+ 54.13 her 52.43 cash+ 51.77 but 51 lose. 50.07 simpl+ 49.45 out 48.22 who 47.47 wife 47.05 have 47.05 *speaker_She46.45 keep. 46.42 hundred+ 45.29 force+ 45.02 *speaker_Zyw42.61 lisa+ 40.98 health+ 40.5 them 40.43 122 67 148 40 134 25 39 49 24 19 37 111 83 41 37 40 43 25 51 30 83 31 21 53 51 14 15 20 12 417 417 16 31 11 103 22 29 64 123 10 196 51 19 18 20 20 10 11 46 credit 705.37 rate+ 351.8 consumer+ 300.51 union+ 285.65 card+ 282.76 losses 264.49 percent+ 210.89 bank+ 205.92 loan+ 193.88 *speaker_Kle 190.44 bankruptcies 170.1 high+ 159.56 profit+ 143.25 industr+ 138.03 increase+ 124.57 market+ 119.16 filing+ 112.66 mill+ 103.42 *speaker_Nus101.57 *congress_19 98.37 lender+ 97.22 saving+ 90.71 than 88.84 total+ 88.18 customer+ 84.87 interest+ 83.31 price+ 77.62 *speaker_Ham 76 *vote_NA 71.64 *party_NA 71.64 american+ 71.27 cause+ 70.79 service+ 68.66 recent+ 64.39 rise. 63.57 loss 62.34 borrow+ 62.07 lend. 61.6 estimate+ 60.6 *speaker_Bei 59.54 number+ 58.45 nationwide 56.48 low+ 54.74 community+ 53.26 average+ 51.36 more 50.48 member+ 48.99 retail+ 47.08 local 46.57 257 72 135 96 100 58 65 45 52 90 53 62 27 37 54 25 85 60 44 258 27 20 76 28 26 55 21 40 368 368 49 25 33 29 21 28 18 23 21 46 46 12 32 20 19 74 73 15 12 Formes Khi2 Eff. Formes Khi2 Eff. Formes Khi2 Eff.

Classe 5

Classe 4

Classe 2

Classe 3

Classe 6
Formes Khi2 Eff. mr 1118.52587 chairman+ 642.1 259 thank+ 618.99 232 you 358.9 378 gentleman+ 299.39 104 SENSENBRENNE 222.83 80 *speaker_Sen221.8 107 *vote_Yea 207.9 404 I 170.15 366 *party_Repub 165.37 238 CANNON 155.03 57 question+ 145.93 97 OF 133.43 58 GEKAS 129.82 64 minute+ 119.09 49 *vote_Nay 115.46 239 *speaker_Gek114.44 101 STATEMENT 112.84 44 *speaker_Can109.53 109 expire+ 103.2 36 ms 99.3 77 answer+ 97.31 51 ask+ 90.49 74 *party_Dem 86.85 263 CONYERS 85.4 33 NADLER 83.77 47 chair+ 83.01 35 PREPARED 82.52 32 subcommittee74.76 53 THE 73.91 39 like 62.34 81 hear. 60.28 74 okay 59.93 21 DELAHUNT 58.17 38 *party_Rep 57.89 142 follow+ 57.7 49 record+ 57.32 55 unanimous 57.06 20 testify+ 55.32 21 york 52.46 20 consent 51.33 18 sensenbrenne51.33 18 appreci+ 50.36 32 wallace+ 50.3 31 committee+ 48.73 84 michigan 46.75 18 congressm+ 46.03 33 CHABOT 45.6 16 beine 45.49 19

Appendix H: Relation Among Classes

Formes

Khi2

Eff.

Formes

Khi2

debtor+ 514.68 under 188.01 test+ 184.93 creditor+ 161.51 mean. 142 reliev+ 134.78 code+ 118.09 burden+ 106.89 circumstance 94 asset+ 91.75 current+ 88.8 require+ 87.77 seek. 86.8 *vote_NA 86.27 *party_NA 86.27 chapter+ 85.43 discretion+ 84.05 create+ 83.51 plan+ 82.42 *speaker_Sch79.94 case+ 79.39 court+ 71.14 system+ 63.89 provision+ 63.8 the 61.83 estate+ 60.88 standard+ 60.48 dismiss+ 58.58 *speaker_Str 54.43 honest+ 53.62 section+ 53.45 abuse+ 51.84 to 50.2 confirm+ 50.04 bankrupt+ 48.97 repayment+ 48.33 reorganiz+ 48.33 *speaker_Mil 46.75 obtain+ 44.91 *speaker_Sil 43.8 a 43.65 those 43.46 discharge+ 43.05 determine+ 42.44 legal+ 40.62 change+ 40.59 *speaker_Jon40.46 make. 39.49 b 39.4

309 117 104 139 120 80 66 46 50 41 90 85 52 580 580 114 35 36 44 45 104 99 130 103 749 25 42 23 38 28 56 82 617 16 355 22 28 60 31 50 450 98 49 24 26 44 42 105 20

*speaker_Bec942.05 judicial 439.37 program+ 386.49 unit+ 342.21 trustee+ 327.76 implement+ 291.43 district+ 253.83 office+ 242.13 appeal+ 234.74 *congress_20 232.87 court+ 195.76 civil+ 192.97 *party_Rep 190.31 rule+ 177.67 *speaker_Fri 167.92 enforce+ 166.06 *speaker_Sma 161.53 audit+ 157 case+ 137.71 *Congress_20132.36 *party_Repub 132.36 form+ 122.22 conference+ 121.08 interim 117.68 executive+ 112.05 direct+ 101.12 clerk+ 96.12 return+ 93.61 train+ 91.47 precedent+ 91.47 *speaker_Whi90.4 conduct+ 87.96 official+ 87.88 state+ 86.76 supreme 80.75 develop+ 79.62 judge+ 79.16 caseload+ 78.32 responsibili 76.47 initiative+ 76.1 fraud 75.3 data 74.52 task+ 65.5 appellate 65.5 temporary 64.55 justice 63.68 statutory 63.68 federal+ 63.55 tax 63.15

53

Appendix I: House Final Vote

YEA - 302 (73 Dem, 229 Repub) Charles Boustany R LA Randall "Duke" CunninghamR John Boozman R AR John Culberson R Mary Bono Mack R CA Barbara Cubin R Jo Bonner R AL Ander Crenshaw R Henry Bonilla R TX Christopher Cox R John Boehner R OH Michael Conaway R Sherwood "Sherry" Boehlert R NY Tom Cole R Roy Blunt R MO Howard Coble R Marsha Blackburn R TN Chris Chocola R Rob Bishop R UT Steven "Steve" Chabot R Michael Bilirakis R FL Michael Castle R Judy Biggert R IL John Carter R Bob Beauprez R CO Shelley Capito R Charles "Charlie" Bass R NH Eric Cantor R Joe Barton R TX Christopher "Chris" Cannon R Roscoe Bartlett R MD David "Dave" Camp R James "J. Gresham" Barrett R SC Ken Calvert R Richard Baker R LA Stephen "Steve" Buyer R Spencer Bachus R AL Dan Burton R Rodney Alexander R LA Michael Burgess R Todd Akin R MO Virginia "Ginny" Brown-Waite R Robert Aderholt R AL Dave Reichert R Kenny Hulshof R MO Dennis "Denny" Rehberg R John Hostettler R IN Ralph Regula R Peter "Pete" Hoekstra R MI James "Jim" Ramstad R David "Dave" Hobson R OH George Radanovich R Walter "Wally" Herger R CA Adam Putnam R Jeb Hensarling R TX Deborah Pryce R Joel Hefley R CO Tom Price R John "J.D." Hayworth R AZ Robert "Rob" Portman R Robin Hayes R NC Jon Porter R Doc Hastings R WA Richard Pombo R Dennis "Denny" Hastert R IL Ted Poe R Melissa Hart R PA Todd Platts R Katherine Harris R FL Joseph Pitts R Ralph Hall R TX Charles "Chip" Pickering R Gilbert "Gil" Gutknecht R MN Thomas "Tom" Petri R Mark Green R WI John Peterson R Samuel "Sam" Graves R MO Mike Pence R Kay Granger R TX Steven "Steve" Pearce R Robert "Bob" Goodlatte R VA Ronald "Ron" Paul R Virgil Goode R VA Michael Oxley R Louis Gohmert R TX "Butch" Otter R John "Phil" Gingrey R GA Thomas "Tom" Osborne R Wayne Gilchrest R MD James "Jim" Nussle R James "Jim" Gibbons R NV Devin Nunes R Jim Gerlach R PA Charles "Charlie" Norwood R Scott Garrett R NJ Anne Northup R Elton Gallegly R CA Robert "Bob" Ney R Rodney Frelinghuysen R NJ Randy Neugebauer R Trent Franks R AZ Sue Myrick R Virginia Foxx R NC Marilyn Musgrave R Vito Fossella R NY Tim Murphy R Jeffrey Fortenberry R NE Jerry Moran R Randy Forbes R VA Gary Miller R Mark Foley R FL Candice Miller R Jeff Flake R AZ Jeff Miller R Michael Fitzpatrick R PA John Mica R Michael "Mike" Ferguson R NJ Cathy McMorris Rodgers R Tom Feeney R FL Howard "Buck" McKeon R Terry Everett R AL John McHugh R Philip "Phil" English R PA Patrick McHenry R Jo Ann Emerson R MO James "Jim" McCrery R Vernon Ehlers R MI Thaddeus "Thad" McCotter R John "Jimmy" Duncan R TN Michael McCaul R David Dreier R CA Kenny Marchant R Thelma Drake R VA Donald Manzullo R John Doolittle R CA Connie Mack R Mario Diaz-Balart R FL Daniel Lungren R Lincoln Diaz-Balart R FL Frank Lucas R Charles Dent R PA Frank LoBiondo R Thomas "Tom" DeLay R TX John Linder R Nathan Deal R GA Ron Lewis R Thomas "Tom" Davis R VA Jerry Lewis R Jo Ann Davis R VA James "Jim" Leach R Geoff Davis R KY Steven LaTourette R

Allen Boyd Frederick "Rick" Boucher Leonard Boswell Dan Boren Sanford Bishop Robert "Marion" Berry Melissa Bean Brian Baird Joe Baca Robert "Rob" Andrews Steny Hoyer Darlene Hooley Tim Holden Ruben Hinojosa Brian Higgins Stephanie Herseth Sandlin Jane Harman Al Green Barton "Bart" Gordon Charles "Charlie" Gonzalez Harold Ford Bob Etheridge Thomas "Chet" Edwards Lincoln Davis James "Jim" Davis Artur Davis Henry Cuellar Joseph Crowley Robert "Bud" Cramer Jim Costa Jim Cooper Emanuel Cleaver Ben Chandler Ed Case Dennis Cardoza Nick Rahall David Price Earl Pomeroy Collin Peterson Edward "Ed" Pastor Solomon Ortiz John Murtha James "Jim" Moran Dennis Moore Alan Mollohan Michael Michaud Robert "Bob" Men!ndez Charles Melancon Gregory Meeks Kendrick Meek Mike McIntyre Carolyn McCarthy Jim Matheson Rick Larsen Ronald "Ron" Kind William Jefferson Steve Israel Albert Wynn David Wu Michael "Mike" Thompson Gene Taylor Ellen Tauscher John Tanner Ted Strickland John Spratt Ike Skelton David Scott Allyson Schwartz John Salazar Dutch Ruppersberger Steven Rothman Mike Ross Silvestre Reyes Henry Brown Kevin Brady Jeb Bradley

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D R R R

FL VA IA OK GA AR IL WA CA NJ MD OR PA TX NY SD CA TX TN TX TN NC TX TN FL AL TX NY AL CA TN MO KY HI CA WV NC ND MN AZ TX PA VA KS WV ME NJ LA NY FL NC NY UT WA WI LA NY MD OR CA MS CA TN OH SC MO GA PA CO MD NJ AR TX SC TX NH

CA TX WY FL CA TX OK NC IN OH DE TX WV VA UT MI CA IN IN TX FL WA MT OH MN CA FL OH GA OH NV CA TX PA PA MS WI PA IN NM TX OH ID NE IA CA GA KY OH TX NC CO PA KS CA MI FL FL WA CA NY NC LA MI TX TX IL FL CA OK NJ GA KY CA IA OH

Thomas "Tom" Latham John "Randy" Kuhl James "Jim" Kolbe Joseph "Joe" Knollenberg John Kline Mark Kirk Jack Kingston Peter "Pete" King Steve King Mark Kennedy Sue Kelly Ric Keller Walter Jones Samuel "Sam" Johnson Timothy Johnson Nancy Johnson Bobby Jindal William "Bill" Jenkins Ernest Istook Darrell Issa Bob Inglis Henry Hyde Duncan Hunter Bill Young Donald "Don" Young Frank Wolf Addison "Joe" Wilson Heather Wilson Roger Wicker Edward "Ed" Whitfield Lynn Westmoreland Gerald "Jerry" Weller Curtis "Curt" Weldon Zach Wamp James "Jim" Walsh Greg Walden Frederick "Fred" Upton Michael Turner Patrick "Pat" Tiberi Todd Tiahrt William "Mac" Thornberry William "Bill" Thomas Lee Terry Charles Taylor Thomas "Tom" Tancredo John Sweeney John Sullivan Clifford "Cliff" Stearns Mark Souder Michael Sodrel Lamar Smith Christopher "Chris" Smith Michael "Mike" Simpson Robert "Rob" Simmons William "Bill" Shuster John Shimkus Donald "Don" Sherwood Christopher Shays Clay Shaw John Shadegg Peter "Pete" Sessions James Sensenbrenner John "Joe" Schwarz James "Jim" Saxton Jim Ryun Paul Ryan Edward "Ed" Royce Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Dana Rohrabacher Michael "Mike" Rogers Harold "Hal" Rogers Michael "Mike" Rogers Thomas Reynolds Rick Renzi

R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R

IA NY AZ MI MN IL GA NY IA MN NY FL NC TX IL CT LA TN OK CA SC IL CA FL AK VA SC NM MS KY GA IL PA TN NY OR MI OH OH KS TX CA NE NC CO NY OK FL IN IN TX NJ ID CT PA IL PA CT FL AZ TX WI MI NJ KS WI CA FL CA MI KY AL NY AZ

54

Michael "Mike" Doyle Lloyd Doggett John Dingell Norman "Norm" Dicks Rosa DeLauro William "Bill" Delahunt Diana DeGette Peter DeFazio Danny Davis Susan Davis Elijah Cummings Jerry Costello John Conyers James "Jim" Clyburn William Clay Julia Carson Russ Carnahan Benjamin Cardin Michael Capuano Lois Capps George "G.K." Butterfield Corrine Brown Sherrod Brown Robert Brady Earl Blumenauer Timothy Bishop Howard Berman Xavier Becerra John Barrow Tammy Baldwin Thomas "Tom" Allen Gary Ackerman Neil Abercrombie Lynn Woolsey Robert Wexler Anthony Weiner Henry Waxman Melvin "Mel" Watt Diane Watson Maxine Waters Debbie Wasserman Schultz Peter Visclosky

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

PA TX MI WA CT MA CO OR IL CA MD IL MI SC MO IN MO MD MA CA NC FL OH PA OR NY CA CA GA WI ME NY HI CA FL NY CA NC CA CA FL IN

NAY - 126 (125 Dem, 1 Ind) Nydia Velezquez D Christopher "Chris" Van Hollen D Tom Udall D Mark Udall D Edolphus "Ed" Towns D John Tierney D Bennie Thompson D Bart Stupak D Fortney "Pete" Stark D Victor "Vic" Snyder D Adam Smith D Louise Slaughter D Brad Sherman D Jose Serrano D Robert "Bobby" Scott D Adam Schiff D Janice "Jan" Schakowsky D Loretta Sanchez D Linda Sanchez D Martin Sabo D Timothy Ryan D Bobby Rush D Lucille Roybal-Allard D Charles Rangel D Nancy Pelosi D Donald Payne D William "Bill" Pascrell D Frank Pallone D Major Owens D John Olver D David "Dave" Obey D James Oberstar D Richard Neal D Grace Napolitano D Jerrold Nadler D Gwen Moore D George Miller D Bradley "Brad" Miller D Juanita Millender-McDonaldD Martin "Marty" Meehan D Michael McNulty D Cynthia McKinney D Abstain - 7 (4 Dem, 3 Rep)

NY MD NM CO NY MA MS MI CA AR WA NY CA NY VA CA IL CA CA MN OH IL CA NY CA NJ NJ NJ NY MA WI MN MA CA NY WI CA NC CA MA NY GA

James "Jim" McGovern James "Jim" McDermott Betty McCollum Doris Matsui James "Jim" Marshall Edward "Ed" Markey Carolyn Maloney Stephen Lynch Nita Lowey Zoe Lofgren Daniel Lipinski John Lewis Sander Levin Barbara Lee John Larson James "Jim" Langevin Dennis Kucinich Carolyn Kilpatrick Dale Kildee Patrick Kennedy Marcy Kaptur Paul Kanjorski Stephanie Jones Eddie Johnson Sheila Jackson-Lee Jesse Jackson Jay Inslee Michael "Mike" Honda Rush Holt Maurice Hinchey Alcee Hastings Raul Grijalva Raymond "Gene" Green Barney Frank Bob Filner Chaka Fattah Sam Farr Lane Evans Anna Eshoo Eliot Engel Rahm Emanuel Bernard "Bernie" Sanders

D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D I

MA WA MN CA GA MA NY MA NY CA IL GA MI CA CT RI OH MI MI RI OH PA OH TX TX IL WA CA NJ NY FL AZ TX MA CA PA CA IL CA NY IL VT

Hilda Solis Tom Lantos Luis Gutierrez Shelley Berkley David "Dave" Weldon Ray LaHood Paul Gillmor

D D D D R R R

CA CA IL NV FL IL OH

55

Appendix J: Senate Final Vote

Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Allen (R-VA) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Bennett (R-UT) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burns (R-MT) Burr (R-NC) Byrd (D-WV) Carper (D-DE) Chafee (R-RI) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Coleman (R-MN) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Cornyn (R-TX) Craig (R-ID) Crapo (R-ID) YEA - 74 DeMint (R-SC) DeWine (R-OH) Dole (R-NC) Domenici (R-NM) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Frist (R-TN) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hagel (R-NE) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Inouye (D-HI) Isakson (R-GA) Jeffords (I-VT) Johnson (D-SD) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Landrieu (D-LA) Lincoln (D-AR) Lott (R-MS) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Murkowski (R-AK) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Reid (D-NV) Roberts (R-KS) Salazar (D-CO) Santorum (R-PA) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (R-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Stevens (R-AK) Sununu (R-NH) Talent (R-MO) Thomas (R-WY) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (R-VA) Akaka (D-HI) Boxer (D-CA) Cantwell (D-WA) Corzine (D-NJ) Dayton (D-MN) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) NAY - 25 Feinstein (D-CA) Harkin (D-IA) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (D-CT) Mikulski (D-MD) Not Voting - 1 Clinton (D-NY) Murray (D-WA) Obama (D-IL) Reed (D-RI) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sarbanes (D-MD) Schumer (D-NY) Wyden (D-OR)

56