A House subcommittee passed a bankruptcy reform measure favorable to lenders last week that appears to be more of a vehicle for partisanship than a viable piece of legislation.

The House judiciary subcommittee headed by Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa., approved a measure March 25 after two days of work that has most of the provisions contained in a similar bill which went into conference late last year, but then failed to pass after getting caught up in partisan bickering and the threat of a presidential veto.

And, given the 5-3 partisan vote by which the legislation passed the subcommittee, more of the same lies ahead. A vote on a bipartisan measure scheduled for a Senate Judiciary Committee markup last week was postponed until after Congress returns April 13.

The Gekas bill contains a means test opposed by liberal Democrats and the Clinton administration and none of the consumer protection provisions sought by the administration and Democrats. It would require debtors who make more than $51,000–the national median income for a family of four–to enter into a prepayment plan. It also contains language intended to close a loophole that allows debtors in states with so-called homestead laws to shield cash invested in expensive homes.

However, Gekas did add an amendment that increased the homestead allowance to $250,000 from $100,000.

In the House, Democrats, prodded by the Clinton administration, are demanding strong disclosures and other protections for consumers taking on consumer debt. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of both the Banking and Judiciary committees, is leading the charge on the issue in the Senate.

Among the problems facing the bill are that Sen. Phil Gramm, D-Texas, who heads the banking committee, has voiced opposition to the consumer protection provisions.

Equally important, lobbyists said they have learned that the administration plans to embrace the credit card consumer protections as well as financial privacy protection provisions as their own. That would appear to doom both the bankruptcy bill and financial modernization legislation now being considered by both houses. These were scheduled to be announced March 25, but the press conference was postponed due to the bombing of Kosovo.