As first lady, she encouraged her husband to veto a bill strongly supported by the credit card industry and opposed by consumer advocates to make it harder for people to discharge their debts by declaring bankruptcy.
Later, as a senator, she voted for one version of the measure in 2001 but did not vote on the bill that became law in 2005. (Her campaign said she did not participate because her husband had just undergone heart surgery.)
As a presidential candidate, Clinton has confronted financiers on the home mortgage crisis. "Wall Street helped create the foreclosure crisis, and Wall Street needs to help solve it," she said.
She has advocated a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures, a five-year rate freeze on sub-prime adjustable-rate mortgages, and aid to states to avert foreclosures.
Obama voted against the 2005 bankruptcy bill. As an Illinois state senator in 2003, he carried a bill eventually signed into law that provided limited protection for borrowers against so-called predatory lending practices.
In a statement, the Obama campaign said the candidate had sought to reduce "the influence of special interests over the legislative process." As a presidential candidate, the statement notes, Obama does not take donations from political action committees. He did, however, accept PAC money from Citigroup and others for his past campaigns.
"In front of audiences on Wall Street and Main Street, Sen. Obama has proposed an aggressive plan to mitigate the sub-prime mortgage crisis both to protect homeowners and to prevent the problems in the housing market from taking a toll on the economy as a whole," the statement says.
Obama and Clinton have been talking for some time about addressing the mortgage crisis. But some Democrats complain that they have been too timid in speaking out about what they see as the Bush administration's unwillingness to help homeowners even as the Federal Reserve moves to help major financial institutions.
"What that Wall Street money means is that few people in Washington, including the leading presidential candidates, say a thing when the government moves to bail out Wall Street before it helps homeowners," said David Sirota, a liberal activist and former congressional aide.
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janet.hook@latimes.com
dan.morain@latimes.com
Times researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this report.
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Following the money
