An ugly scene erupted in the Texas Senate today, with Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) suggesting that some of his Republican colleagues were “shills” for the payday loan industry and worrying that the GOP would be seen as “the party that is backed and bankrolled by payday lenders.”
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The explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, on Wednesday raises the same questions that followed the 1947 disaster in Texas City, the largest industrial accident in American history.
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Consumer advocates and Democrats are divided over a Senate bill that would impose light regulations on payday and auto-title lenders.
Read full postIt’s becoming a perennial pastime at the Texas Capitol. Former speaker of the House Rep. Tom Craddick (R-Midland) files a simple one-page bill that would close a loophole that allows payday and auto-title lenders in Texas to avoid the state’s anti-usury laws and charge unlimited rates; everyone listens politely; and then the bill gets leapfrogged by much more convoluted payday reform legislation.
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At a legislative hearing this morning, state Sen. John Carona, the Dallas Republican who’s leading the payday “reform” effort in the Senate, basically said the industry had bought off lawmakers. Carona was defending the latest version of his payday loan legislation, which most advocates derided as unacceptably weak.
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