This Washington
Low-Income Advocates Happy About Stalled Payday Bill
Low-income advocacy groups are nervous about a bill that's slowly making progress in the senate that would roll back last year's payday loan reform bill. Sen. Sharon Nelson's (D-34, Maury Island) bill from 2010 is under attack from Rep. Steve Kirby's (D-29, Tacoma) house bill and by Sen. Margarita Prentice's (D-11, Renton) senate bill
; both would remove a cap limiting the number of times someone could take out a payday loan to eight in a single year. Proponents are arguing that last year's cap has led people to pursue Internet loans, which are currently outside the purview of loan regulation.
The good news for lefty groups is that Kirby's legislation has fallen flat in the house after failing to muster a vote in the General Government Appropriations and Oversight Committee. Zack Hudgins (D-11, Tukwila), chair of the house general government committee would only say that the bill didn't have enough supporting members to move forward for a vote.
The house bill did get a hearing on Monday, when the Statewide Poverty Action Network (SPAN) was the only group that testified against it (no one testified in favor). They argued that if legislators were really concerned about Internet lending, then they should address that issue directly, not take a step backward from last year's legislation.
In the senate, where the Prentice legislation has been voted out of committee and sent to the rules committee, it's unclear whether or not Majority Leader Sen. Lisa Brown (D-3, Spokane) will put the legislation up for a tough vote now that it has failed to make it out of the house.
Jim Richards, a lobbyist for SPAN, says that even though Prentice has successfully moved the bill through the first of two steps in the rules committee, the bill is still just sitting there, and hasn't yet been placed on the calendar for a floor vote. Passing the bill in the senate only to send it over to fall flat once more in the house isn't the ideal move.
We have a call in to Sen. Brown.
The good news for lefty groups is that Kirby's legislation has fallen flat in the house after failing to muster a vote in the General Government Appropriations and Oversight Committee. Zack Hudgins (D-11, Tukwila), chair of the house general government committee would only say that the bill didn't have enough supporting members to move forward for a vote.
The house bill did get a hearing on Monday, when the Statewide Poverty Action Network (SPAN) was the only group that testified against it (no one testified in favor). They argued that if legislators were really concerned about Internet lending, then they should address that issue directly, not take a step backward from last year's legislation.
In the senate, where the Prentice legislation has been voted out of committee and sent to the rules committee, it's unclear whether or not Majority Leader Sen. Lisa Brown (D-3, Spokane) will put the legislation up for a tough vote now that it has failed to make it out of the house.
Jim Richards, a lobbyist for SPAN, says that even though Prentice has successfully moved the bill through the first of two steps in the rules committee, the bill is still just sitting there, and hasn't yet been placed on the calendar for a floor vote. Passing the bill in the senate only to send it over to fall flat once more in the house isn't the ideal move.
We have a call in to Sen. Brown.
