Yesterday, I wrote about whether Joe Biden was good for labor. Relatively speaking, the answer is yes. Relative speaking because Paul Wellstone is not alive and, compared to the other people being considered, Biden was a decent choice.

   In the analysis, I used a quick-and-dirty look at 12 years of the AFL-CIO’s legislative scorecard. Several people who e-mailed me correctly pointed out that what I did not bring up was Biden’s role in leading the push to pass the toxic and awful bankruptcy bill. No question about it: that was not his finest hour and, arguably, it was a piece of legislation that had in its cross-hairs many millions of working people.

   For folks with only a dim memory of the bill: the bill made debtors have to pay a lot more to creditors so that any bankruptcy filing would leave a family with a heavier debt load; and basically increased the paper work and barriers so that getting through bankruptcy would become more stressful, time-consuming and expensive. Organized labor fought hard to defeat the bill. The main forces behind the bill were a coalition of Visa, MBNA America, Mastercard, Citicorp and other major credit companes who poured millions of dollars into the effort. Biden wasn’t the only Democratic champion of the bill–when a cloture vote came up to end a filibuster against the bill, Biden was joined by Tim Johnson (South Dakota), Tom Carper (Delaware), Ben Nelson (Nebraska), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas) and Bill Nelson (Florida), all voting to crush the filibuster.

   I talked yesterday to a labor lobbyist who was deeply involved in the fight against the bill. The lobbyist’s take: Biden was really bad on the bill and its a black mark on his record. But, at least, from the lobbyist’s perspective, Biden was arguing for the bill based on jobs, given that the credit card industry makes its home in Delaware. And, at the end of day, the lobbyist says union leaders and members in Delaware love Biden.

   So, take that info for what it’s worth.