Tom Fiegen: Bernie Sanders’ BIGGEST ALLY and Candidate for U.S. Senate

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"...Farmer's kid looks to grow a progressive base in the Hawkeye State.."

"...A champion of labor unions, Mr. Fiegen advocates for raising the minimum wage and creating the opportunity for workers to form a collective bargaining unit — especially those at Wal-Mart, who, according to Mr. Fiegen, is “the crack in the dam allowing working people to sink into poverty.” Mr. Fiegen vocalized his support for Mr. Sanders after many of his own supporters implored him to do so. His campaign issued a formal endorsement this week..."

When the Democratic presidential primary kicks off in Iowa in February 2016, the state will also be gearing up for the U.S. Senate race to unseat incumbent Senior Senator, Republican Chuck Grassley, who has held the position since 1981. Three Democrats have declared they are running. One of them—former Iowa State Senator, Democratic Caucus Chair in the precinct of Clarence, Iowa, and bankruptcy lawyer, Tom Fiegen—has formally endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for president, and is one of his greatest allies in the battle to win the first Democratic presidential primary of the 2016 election cycle.

“The first time I heard Bernie Sanders speak was in May 2014,” said Mr. Fiegen in a phone interview with the Observer. “He came to a little county on the eastern edge of Iowa, Clinton County, to speak in a little town called Goose Lake. There’s a wedding hall there. 300 people came to hear him, more than there are people in that little Town of Goose Lake. After he spoke, the mood was electric, and people were saying to each other, ‘This man should run for president,’ and he hadn’t even hinted at presidential ambitions that night.”

Mr. Fiegen shares similar stances with Senator Bernie Sanders, including repealing Citizens United.

“I want to fix the bribery of politicians in the guise of campaign contributions,” Mr. Fiegen said. “People throw around the reference to Citizens United, but the problem is much more systemic and ingrained than that.”

What works for corporations doesn’t work for small businesses. We need to help them keep their doors open. Mr. Fiegen cites an NPR story from 2012 about convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In the piece, Mr. Abramoff explains how he donated $100,000 to Mr. Fiegen’s opponent, incumbent U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, in exchange for allowing his client, Tyco International, to evade paying billions in taxes. For the past 27 years, Mr. Fiegen has specialized in bankruptcy cases and currently runs his firm out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was inspired by his parents, who nearly lost their farm in the 1980s.

“I was volunteering at a farm aid clinic in the eighties where lenders were taking family pets as collateral and selling them at short sale,” Mr. Fiegen said. “Congress passed chapter 12 reorganization bankruptcy legislation, and immediately the landscape changed. Lenders started negotiating in good faith so people could keep their farms. If elected, I would make it legal for people to restructure their home mortgages under chapter 13 bankruptcy. In 2009, a bill to that effect failed in the senate by two votes. Senator Grassley was one of those opposed. If chapter 13 had been amended to allow homeowners to restructure their mortgages, I guarantee there would be millions of people who would’ve kept their homes coming out of the 2008 recession, who are now renting or living with relatives because they were foreclosed and they had no way to cure their mortgage overages.”

Many of Mr. Fiegen’s clients have suffered a major health crisis. Left with thousands of dollars in expenses with no way to pay, their only alternative is to declare bankruptcy. Small businesses fall under the same bankruptcy laws as corporations, which makes them suffer even more.



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http://observer.com/2015/11/tom-fiegen-bernie-sanders-biggest-ally-and-candidate-for-u-s-senate/