But a study released by Congress's General Accounting Office today may make that long-standing shelter a little harder to defend, critics say. The findings suggest to some that the unlimited homestead exemption isn't the populist shield it has often been cracked up to be, but rather a convenient protection for a few affluent people. Of the approximately 14,000 Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases closed in the Northern District of Texas in 1998, half involved a homestead exemption claim, GAO found. Kohl based his indignation on spotty reports of wealthy individuals, such as movie actor Burt Reynolds and former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, holding onto luxurious homes despite hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in unpaid debts. Kansas, South Dakota and Iowa.
Most states allow only small exemptions.
Lobbying by Texas politicians over the past several years has helped stave off a ceiling on the amount of exemption that states can allow. Bush, GOP Lt. Gov. Rick Perry and Texas House Speaker Pete Laney, a Democrat, signed a letter to Congress last year opposing the limitation. Other Texas Democrats, including Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, have also opposed federal ceilings on the exemption. And the Texas state office in Washington, which is under Bush's direction, has lobbied against changes, sources said.