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An email is circulating by a "Marc Stern" with some ideas on how to deal with any upcoming town halls. The email is directed to bankruptcy attorneys, but most of it is relevant to any concerned citizen.

Congress is in recess.  Our Representatives are coming home to campaign, hold Town Meetings and talk, they think, about Social Security Reform, with their constituents.  They view their vote on BARF as a "free vote," i.e. there is no future debtors lobby so that can give a special interest a gift with little or no consequence.

It is time to let them know that there will be a downside to their support of the bill.  Take some clients.  Don't talk about the means test.  Everyone thinks that debtors who legitimately can pay their bills, should.  They are ready to talk about responsibility and it sounds good.  Don't let them derail the discussion with talk about how people should file Chapter 13.  Even though most of think that it will not work, there is little or nothing to be gained on this issue.

There are other things tucked in the bill that can be extremely hard to defend and they should be put on the spot.  For instance:

Why should investment bankers be exempt from conflict of interest laws? (The Leahy Sarbanes Warner amendment)

Why should some creditors who file frivolous and vexatious motions be immune from 9011 sanctions? Section 102 of the bill dealing with "small businesses" that sound like debt buyers and collection agencies?

Some Representatives have never heard of the "universal default clause" that allows a credit card company to increase your interest rate because you were late on another bill, not theirs.  It is time that they found out.

The attorney liability stuff, especially the debt relief agency materials are another example.

Representatives are not used to being questioned and are not certainly not used to being held accountable.  The time is now.  Even if this thing passes, as we start trying to figure out how or if we are going to practice under the new order, it will be a source of some relief to remember how they couldn't explain it and how embarrassed they were that they did not even know that some of this stuff was in the bill.   More information can be found here:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/bankruptcy/

Go out, visit your Representative and ask them.  It might be enlightening, it will almost certainly be fun, and maybe it will do some good.