Bankruptcy Bill House Vote

Techpolitics has a table listing all the House members and their vote on the bankruptcy bill. Only one Republican, Kevin Brady of Texas, voted no, whereas 74 Democrats voted yes. Of the 38 so-called new Democrats, 25 voted yes. Of the forty members of the congressional black caucus, only 10 voted yes. (There are some mistakes in this table, because the House roll call lists Brady as voting for, not against.)

The table lists the median household income in each representative's district. I thought there might be a correlation between household income and the vote, but there wasn't. The average of the district median income for representatives voting no is $42,772.62 and $43,720.42 for those voting yes, a mere $947.80 difference. But, interestingly, looking only at the Democrats, the yes vote came from the poorer districts (average median income $39,647.09 versus $42,806.73 for the no vote). This is, perhaps not so surprising. The main impact of this legislation will be on families with a little bit higher income, families who today could file under chapter 7, but with the rigid means test dictated by the reform will now have to file chapter 13. The lowest income families will not be impacted.