If you would like a crystal-clear example of the disdain with which elected officials hold their constituency, those people whose interests they are elected to serve, you need look no further than SENATE BILL 365 by Sen. Rick Ward (R-Port Allen).
The bill, which gives Louisiana’s payday loan industry an opportunity to dig its spurs a little deeper into the very people who can lease afford it, was passed in the Senate on Monday by a 20-17 VOTE, with two members not voting.
Of the 20 who voted in favor of the bill, 13 have received campaign contributions totaling $43,250 (an average of $3,327 each) since 2011. Three of those, Daniel Martiny, R-Metairie ($9,500), Body White, R-Central ($9,000) and Gary Smith, D-Norco ($7,950), averaged $8,817 each.
Other recipients included:
- Conrad Appel, R-Metairie: $4,000;
- Wesley Bishop, D- New Orleans: $1500;
- Norby Chabert, R-Houma: $2500;
- Dale Erdy, R-Livingston: $1000
- Ronnie Johns, R-Lake Charles: $3000;
- Eric Lafleur, D-Ville Platte: $1500;
- Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton: $500;
- Barrow Peacock, R-Bossier City: $1500;
- Ed Price, D-Gonzales: $1000;
- Rick Ward, R-Port Allen: $2300.
Fourteen of the 17 senators who voted against the bill also received a combined total of $34,500, or an average of $2,464 each, campaign finance records show.
They included:
- Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego: $7000;
- Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge: $1000;
- Page Cortez, R-Lafayette: $4500;
- Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville: $500;
- Jim Fannin, R-Jonesboro: $2000;
- Gerald Long, R-Winnfield: $2500;
- Dan Morrish, R-Jennings: $2500;
- Jonathan Perry, R-Kaplan: $1500;
- Neil Riser, R-Columbia: $2500;
- John Smith, R-Leesville: $5000;
- Leon Tarver, D-Shreveport: $1000;
- Francis Thompson, D-Delhi: $1500;
- Mike Walsworth, R-West Monroe: $2000.
Good on them for not cratering to the influence of campaign bucks but the overriding question remains: Why do candidates even accept money from these type sources when they know full well their motives?
The bill, if approved by the House and signed by Gov. Edwards who received $6,500 himself from payday loan contributors, would create the Louisiana Credit Access Loan Act, which would allow lenders to issue new payday loans from $500 to $875 for terms of three to 12 months. Present law limits loans to $350 for up to 60 days.
The bill also doubles the annual percentage rate on loans that can be made.
Proponents of the bill say that payday lenders provided a needed service to low-income borrowers who are unable to obtain traditional loans. But what they do not say is that such loans carry a $131 origination fee and 85 percent APR. Ward’s bill would increase the fees to $270 and the annual interest rate to 167 percent.
Jan Moller, director of the Louisiana Budget Project argues that Louisiana’s lower-income citizens upon whom payday loan companies prey, cannot afford triple-digit interest rates, adding that the bill is being pushed by more than a dozen “well-connected lobbyists” who he said are selling “a false narrative.” He said the bill is an example of “greed and arrogance at the highest level.”
The finest legislators money can buy, folks.
We live in an age of doublespeak, don’t we? Helping poor people by giving them access to larger loans really means trapping them in inescapable debt. Helping protect students and teachers really means allowing more guns to be sold more easily. Helping the middle class by refusing to increase taxes really means further increasing the already grotesque inequity in wealth and making the middle class pay more for education, health insurance, and auto repairs from driving on potholed roads. And electing a president who promises to drain the swamp really means turning over governance to a crime family.
Excellent points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Amen and Amen, Harold. Thanks for pointing out how we have to think beyond the words and look at the reality.
Great comment.
It’s too bad the people who are victimized by this, the poor and the hard-up, can’t band together around a new social ethic that would “Just Say No” to this sad, squalid industry based on desperation and greed..
Educate kids, push them to vote, exposure is the only currency of the meek, use it. LA voice is doing its part.
Any Politician that would take campaign money from such bottom feeding scumbags as these Payday Loan outfits are just as sorry as they are…………