In Kansas City alone, the payday lending industry plunders more than $26 million each year from the local economy. Money that could be spent on goods and services from local businesses instead pays for predatory fees and interest rates to out of state interests.
Payday lenders have saturated state capitols with cash. Missouri is no exception, with more than $1,000,000 dollars spent in the last few years on lobbying state officials and lining their campaign coffers.
It is important to remember: Every steak and lobster dinner, every campaign check, every dollar a lobbyist spent in the state capitol was extracted from desperate people in financial agony. The average payday loan borrower is a working single mother.
With payday lender lobbyist money clogging the corridors of justice in Jefferson City, Missourians had one last option: going directly to the people.
In 2012, thousands of volunteers across the state stepped forward, joining former borrowers, faith leaders, community groups, and people tired of the drain on their neighborhoods. They built a referendum campaign to put rules protecting borrowers from predatory lenders on the ballot.
Payday lenders attacked reformers ferociously, threatening churches and pastors, hiring men to follow and intimidate volunteers, and pouring in political contributions to silence the voices of the community.
Volunteer leaders overcame all this and more. They organized congregations and clubs, stood in hundred degree heat, and gathered more than 200,000 signatures – more than twice the amount necessary to qualify.
But at the last moment, the deep pockets of the industry bought a legal challenge that threw out thousands of valid signatures (including an elected State Senator), with no time for the community to respond.
Payday lending corrupts our democracy.
Out of the disappointment of the 2012 campaign, the community emerged stronger than ever. They successfully beat back many lender-sponsored fake reform bills in the State Legislature that would have made it easier to prey on our famlies. They took the story of their work higher and higher.
That organizing is paying off now. We can win something greater than ever before. On June 2, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will announce new, national rules designed to cut the worst abuses of the predatory lending industry.
One leading reform advocate called this moment a “Once in a generation opportunity.”
After all of the thousands of hours and miles of work, there is one thing left to do to ensure a victory that meets the real needs of our families: Show up and make your voice heard.
Show up: On Thursday, June 2, Kansas City will host a major event to celebrate the announcement of the new rules. We need you to join us. Hundreds of volunteer leaders, reform advocates, former borrowers, and others from across the country will gather together to show that Americans are serious about payday loan reform and we need the strongest regulation possible. We will make it clear to predatory lenders and the politicians who enable them that we will not accept anything less. And we will commemorate the powerful community leadership that has brought us to this historic moment. More information will be available soon – sign up for updates!
Make your voice heard: Whether or not you can join us in Kansas City, your voice will make the difference between true reform or tepid relief. The CFPB will soon open up its proposed rules for a public comment period, and we need to make sure they hear from you. The payday loan industry will spend millions of dollars to try to water these rules down. They will pay people to make sure that their comments are included. We need you to make sure your voice is heard. Sign up to get notified when public comments are open.