Forced arbitration clauses hide in consumer contracts, but bills in Congress would give consumers more choice: Sheryl Harris
Binding arbitration carries some distinct pitfalls for consumers. Because the company chooses the arbitration forum and rules, upfront costs for consumers can be prohibitively high. Decisions, even ones that run counter to law, often are protected from review by courts. And while parties in court cases can demand important behind-the-scenes records through discovery, those in arbitration don't have the same access.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) Press Release

Huffington Post: Franken's Amendment; the Power and the Promise
Senator Al Franken got my attention and the attention of a lot of other people who care about sexual abuse and violence, with the passing of his Senate Amendment 2566. The Amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill provides for the withholding of federal funds from contractors who continue to apply binding arbitration clauses in employment contracts. It was such a clause that prevented Ms. Jamie Leigh Jones from having her day in court after she was allegedly gang raped and locked in a shipping container in Iraq for two days while employed by a subsidiary of Halliburton. Ms. Jones was present at the hearing. I will leave the commentary of Senator Franken's budding political career and those who opposed his amendment to others more qualified than myself. Read all the National News Coverage - OUTSTANDING VIDEOS: SENATOR FRANKEN IN COMMITTEE AND JAMIE LEIGH JONES

Press Release: Rep. Johnson calls for investigation of homebuilders
Rep. Hank Johnson (GA-04) urged Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker to investigate practices of homebuilders and their use of pre-dispute arbitration clauses in a letter he sent the state’s top lawyer. Citing the example of a Marietta couple (Greg & Kim Cole) who appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Feb. 2009, Johnson told Baker the family was devastated aftera $429,000 new home they purchased became so dangerously overrun with mold that “they were forced to sleep in cars, tents and friends’ homes.”

Franken's Binding Arbitration Amendment Passes, 30 Republicans Men Senators Voted Against The Amendment. All Women Senates Vote in Favor
...what happens when a similarly taxpayer-endowed contractor attempts to cover up employee-on-employee gang rape by locking up the victim in a shipping container without food and water and threatening her with reprisals if she report the incident? Somehow, it doesn't engender the same level of anger! ...introducing an amendment to the Cefense Appropriations bill that would punish contractors if they "restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court." HOW DID YOUR SENATOR VOTE?  Read all the National News Coverage

Senate Passes Amendment to Stop Contractors From Forcing Employees into Arbitration
Jamie Leigh Jones was a 20-year-old young woman working her fourth day on the job in Baghdad for contractor Halliburton/KBR in 2005, when she says she was drugged and gang-raped by seven U.S contractors and held captive by two KBR guards in a shipping container. But more than four years after the alleged crimes occurred, Jones is still waiting for her day in court because when she signed her employment contract, she lost her rights to a jury trial and, instead, was forced into having her claims decided through secret, binding arbitration.

House Pushes Ahead on Financial-Rules Overhaul
The House of Representatives will consider sweeping legislation rewriting the financial sector's rule book in November, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.), said Tuesday, boosting the chances that Congress will complete a regulatory overhaul this year.  Mr. Hoyer said the House Financial Services Committee would complete its work on legislation this month, and a wider debate on the House floor would occur next month. Many observers have increasingly said that it was unlikely the broad rewrite of financial regulations would be completed this year, in part because health-care legislation has taken longer to work through Congress than the Democratic majority had anticipated.

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 111^th Congress - 1^st Session
To prohibit the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims..This would  prohibit mandatory arbitration clauses such as the Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., contract that was so devastating to Jamie Leigh Jones who was gang raped by the company employees. See bill...

State Regulators to Congress: End Mandatory Arbitration
Congress should prohibit mandatory, industry-run securities arbitration, and instead “offer a meaningful choice between binding arbitration and civil litigation,” a leading state regulator told a Congressional panel today. Speaking at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee on capital markets regulatory reform, Texas Securities Commissioner Denise V. Crawford, president of the North American Securities Administrators Assn. (NASAA), said that NASAA, a group of state regulators, believes the take-it-or-leave-it clause in brokerage contracts is “inherently unfair to investors,” and that Congress “should prohibit the mandatory natures of securities arbitration.” Instead, she said, the choice between binding arbitration and civil litigation “should be solely that of the investor.”