At press time, a vote was pending in the House on a conference report to bankruptcy reform legislation (H.R. 333). The legislation languished in a conference committee for more than a year, where negotiators were locked in a dispute over abortion-related language.
The Senate-approved version (S. 420) of the bill contained language that would bar anyone, including anti-abortion protesters, found guilty of threats, violence, harassment, or property damage to an abortion clinic or any other facility from using bankruptcy laws to avoid paying court-imposed fines resulting from such a conviction. The House version did not contain similar language, and conferees had a difficult time hammering out an agreement.
House and Senate negotiators announced last night that they had reached an agreement and would bring the conference report to the House floor today. The compromise clarifies that the provision does not apply to “any expressive conduct protected under the First Amendment,” such as peaceful picketing, peaceful prayer, or other peaceful demonstrations.
The Senate is expected to consider the conference report sometime next week, and The Source will have more details about the bill at that time.
