Biden endorses Warren bankruptcy plan

Joe Biden is endorsing Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) bankruptcy plan as the former vice president works to unite a Democratic Party fractured between centrists and progressives. 

The endorsement of the plan Warren laid out in her ultimately failed presidential bid, which a Biden campaign official confirmed to The Hill, is a stark departure for the former vice president. Warren’s plan explicitly sought to repeal parts of a 2005 bankruptcy bill Biden backed in the Senate.

Warren’s plan, announced in January, would scrap several aspects of the 2005 law, including means testing, separate bankruptcy processes for consumers based on wealth, credit counseling and other requirements she slammed as “onerous and complicated.”

The plan also proposes allowing student loans to be discharged during bankruptcy, a boost for younger voters — a key demographic with which Biden is hoping to make up ground.

Warren, who was a bankruptcy law professor in 2005, was a chief academic critic of the law while Biden was championing it in the Senate. The legislation ultimately passed the House and Senate with bipartisan support and was signed by former President George W. Bush.

The reversal from Biden comes as the former vice president builds a growing delegate lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and works to unite the party as he gears up for the general election. 

Sanders, a staunch progressive, has torn into Biden over his past support for trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and comments about Social Security, possibly intensifying the fissures within the party.

Yet despite the attacks, Biden has shifted to appealing to Sanders and his supporters ahead of an increasingly likely match up with President Trump.

“I want to thank Bernie Sanders and his supporters for their tireless energy and their passion,” Biden said this week after beating Sanders in a handful of primary states. “We share a common goal, and together we’ll defeat Donald Trump.”