Arkansas Blog: What is Sen. Lincoln up to?

The people going after the bloodsucking cash advance/payday lending industry want to know what Sen. Blanche Lincoln is up to.

Legislation she's introduced -- here and here -- would override the state Constitution's limit on interest as it pertains to cash advances on checks and other retail lending. Yes, the language says the interest cap would remain 17 percent. But lawyers believe other state consumer protection laws would be overridden in the process, laws that are now being used to make recoveries for victims of the loan sharks. And with the Constitution overridden, the lawyers wonder if the special interest-owned legislature could step in and impose whatever limits it wanted, if any, for the payday outfits.

Lincoln's legislation would apply only to Arkansas. In one lawyer's opinion, it would also breathe new life into the title pawn business, a loan sharking activity stomped out by Attorney General Winston Bryant more than a decade ago. People victimized by excessive interest by such lenders would only have recourse in federal court, based on recent court decisions.

"It's outrageous," says Todd Turner, the Arkadelphia lawyer who's been pursuing the bloodsuckers for nine years. "I can't believe that my U.S. senator is working to override the state Constitution without a vote of the people."

UPDATE: Late in the day, I got in touch with Sen. Lincoln. She says Turner misinterprets the measures, which she says are aimed at helping small businesses not included in legislation several years ago that gave some exemption from usury limits to banks and need more interest flexibility. More on the jump.

Sen. Lincoln said the agency most in need of the ability to have higher interest rates is the Arkansas Student Loan Authority,which borrows money for loans, but which is limited to the interest it can charge on bonds sold to produce the loan money. The limit is 5 points above the federal discount rate (currently 2.25 percent) or 17 percent, whichever is lower, and the lower rate isn't marketable, she said.

But Lincoln said that low interest ceiling also affects furniture stores and other small retailers. Moving the interest rate up to 17 percent (from 7.25 percent) would help them, but still keep a cap in place. It wouldn't override constitutional limits except up to the 17 percent level and that's not high enough to satisfy payday lenders, she said. "They've complained about this legislation," she said.

"We've worked very hard to be sure we do protect consumers. We are in no way here trying to do anything to advance any bad actors, whether it's payday lenders or anybody else."

She said she'd talked with Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, who's been moving to shut down illegal payday lenders, and said he had not objections to the legislation, which enjoys support from the whole delegation.

Comments

Well, one "unfairness" of the Ark. Const. usury limit is that a lot of "national" organizations operating under federal rules are exempt from it, such as banks. Joe's Used Car Lot that does internal financing is subject to it as were the payday lenders.

I guess the idea is that if only some are allowed to be bloodsuckers, let's make it fair by allowing everyone to be a bloodsucker.

Posted by: Phoenix | July 9, 2008 12:07 PM

If her office calls you back you might as well ask about her FISA vote too, Max...

Posted by: rosso | July 9, 2008 12:21 PM

Blanche sucks. They all suck mostly. She, like so many of them, are warm bodies at best when what we need in the US Senate are intelligent, determined, courageous leaders able to get meaningful, far-sighted legislation to the table and enacted. We can do better. Vote her out next go round.

Hey Blanche. Someday your kids,when they get a bit older, may look you in the eyes and, if they are critical thinkers, will say, "Mom, you were a US Senator and you left us all this crap. WTF. What did you and your partners in insanity do all those years."

They just might ask you that. Get yourself some tee-shirts for them. "My mom was a United States Senator and the best thing that came of her tenure was this lousy tee-shirt."

Throw the bums out.

Posted by: IABL1969 | July 9, 2008 12:36 PM

In addition both Senators Lincoln and Pryor removing the 4th amendment protections in favor of criminal executive branch, in favor of spying on you without cause or recourse.

Everyone from Karl Marx to Osama Bin Laden could not be laughing louder (and cheering for) at our US Senators today.

As Glenn Greenwald @ salon noted earlier about the FISA votes today:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
These are just facts about . the FISA bill . which the Democratic Congress will approve today. Recall that James Comey testified last year that what he and other DOJ officials learned in 2004 about Bush's spying activities for the several years prior was so extreme, so unconscionable, so patently illegal that they all - including even John Ashcroft - threatened to resign en masse unless it stopped immediately. We still have no idea what those spying activities were. We know, though, that even the right-wing DOJ ideologues who approved of the illegal "Terrorist Surveillance Programs" that we know about found those activities indisputably illegal and wrong. But Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Congress will today enact a bill to immunize all of that, to protect the lawbreakers who were responsible.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Note on the No immunity amendment (Dodd Feingold) 32 D Senators voted against immunity... But, all Republicans and Pryor and Lincoln voted for criminals and in absolute defiance of the oath of office to protect and defend the constitution.

Posted by: Eureka Springs, AR | July 9, 2008 12:36 PM

Who on earth can figure out the other person who SHOULDN'T be a Senator from Arkansas? Must be a farm connection here somewhere or a Wal-Mart connection or an AT&T connection. You can bet Pantsuit Blanche didn't come up with this one all by herself. Any one dumb enough to bet she won't vote for the FISA bill? I'll mortgage the house and cars to cover that bet. Why don't we just let Rebekah Kennedy have Blanche's seat too and be done with her and Pryor once and for all?

Posted by: Deathbyinches | July 9, 2008 12:39 PM

Blanche:

Ah, what do you care? You'll have done your time, been largely ineffectual and mediocre and boring and predictable and then you'll go get a cushy over-paid lobbying job and live happily ever after.

What a pathetic system. Just pathetic.

Posted by: IABL1969 | July 9, 2008 12:41 PM

Huckabee 2010.

Posted by: Arkansas Red | July 9, 2008 01:10 PM

No surprise. Her best friends, the high $ lobbyists, win again. Blanche is a Republican in Democrat garb. BTW Blanche, I'm still waiting for you to find the family farm that had to be sold in order to pay estate taxes.

Posted by: downtowner | July 9, 2008 01:12 PM

Will Miz Blanche support Obama??

rs drake on street jazz offers this:

A nice headline this morning - Obama proposes easing consumer bankruptcy laws - http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN08193889 (or blue name link)

What will poor Blanche Lambert Lincoln - who supported the ultra-Draconian changes in the bankruptcy laws that went into play in 2005 - do now? Will she support the Democratic nominee, or will she continue to be in thrall to the banking industry?

Miss Blanche - as our friends at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette love to refer to her - still hasn't responded to my question as to whether or not she feels that it should be just as tough for businesses to declare bankruptcy as for actual human beings."

Call her out 24/7 and don't let up.

Posted by: eLwood | July 9, 2008 01:15 PM

Blanche

Get a real job where your incompetence and lameness doesn't matter, and let's get someone else in there who has what it takes.

Posted by: IABL1969 | July 9, 2008 01:19 PM

Max....when Senator Lincoln returns yer call....could you please tell her I said to get fucked and to stick her FISA vote up her ass. Thanks, yer a deer.....

Posted by: Deathbyinches | July 9, 2008 03:19 PM

=================================================================

Any chance a real Democrat like Vic Synder might run against her in the primary?

I know....wishful thinking...right?

Posted by: Meet John Doe | July 9, 2008 03:49 PM

Any chance a real Democrat like Vic Snyder might run against her in the primary?

RIGHT IABL - AND she'd best destroy all her taped speeches before her kids can ask: Mom, why do all of your statements end up at "zero sum," in their loopy (Wally-like) obtuseness? We can't make head nor tails from ANYTHING you've ever said!

She answers ALL questions; problem is, nothing she's ever said passes the "think" test. Whoever coined "Ms Blank" was brilliant!
|

Posted by: Larry | July 9, 2008 03:55 PM

We're playing God with less fortunates again. It's exactly like outlawing guns, alcohol, abortion, marijuana, etc. Outlaws are going to fill the need that we've deluded ourselves into thinking will just go away at the snap of our fingers.

Posted by: bugeyedlittlefreak | July 9, 2008 04:54 PM

Reasonable people can disagree on these issues, but is telling a female senator she needs get f***ed an appropriate way for left-leaning people to have a civil debate?

Posted by: Thinking Dem | July 10, 2008 10:06 AM

Banks Charge MORE than Payday Loans

Researchers at East Carolina University's Department of Economics published an analysis of payday loans compared to charges by bank overdraft services.

The result: the rates of payday loans were twenty times lower than the alternative.

To quote the study, "Banks charge customers who occasionally bounce checks (one to 10 times per year) interest rates exceeding 6,000 percent. Those who overdraft their accounts more frequently can pay more than $3,000 in fees annually. In an extreme example, a bank forced one individual to pay an interest rate of over 260,000 percent for a mere $3 overdraft left outstanding for a single day."

The banks are driving the attacks on payday lenders. They make BIG BUCKS and CHARGE MORE!!! THEY WANT THE WHOLE PIE.

Hank Klein in Arkansas started his crusade as a main player at an Arkansas Credit Union as a way of increasing PROFIT!!!!

When payday lenders leave, , BANKS CHARGE EVEN MORE!!!

Posted by: Darwin | July 24, 2008 07:06 PM

Arkansas Blog

What is Sen. Lincoln up to?

Comments

Post a comment