SPECIAL Veterans Legislative Action
US House Bill HR 1266 will be considered on Wednesday morning by the US ‘House Financial Services Committee’. Arizona Representatives David Schweikert and Kyrsten Simea are members of this committee and Representative Simea is a cosponsor of this Bill. It is believed that this Bill will weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and its ability to protect servicemembers, veterans and their families.
HR 1266 text is available at: http://1.usa.gov/1h2TVis) . There is also concern about possible amendments to other legislation that may seek to achieve the same harmful goal of HR1266.
There are considerable accountability mechanisms built into the CFPB leadership structure, making it already one of the most transparent and accountable federal financial agencies. These accountability mechanisms include:
– The CFPB provides detailed semi-annual reports to Congress—only the Federal Reserve is subject to the same requirement.
– The CFPB director is appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate and can be removed for cause.
– The CFPB is subject to an annual GAO audit.
– The CFPB’s enforcement actions can be appealed.
– The CFPB’s budget is capped – no other financial regulator has a budget ceiling written into law.
– The CFPB is required to conduct a lengthy rule-making process to evaluate small business impact.
Why change something that is already working well? The CFPB currently has a very high bar to clear when issuing enforcement actions to stop abusive debt collection, hidden loan fees, or 300 percent payday loans and has taken a data-driven and measured approach to doing so. If the CFPB were to be re-organized as a commission, the rules and enforcement actions that have made the financial services market more fair for servicemembers, veterans and their families may never see the light of day.
And when regulators are structured as a commission, they often suffer from gridlock and unfilled positions that result from partisan in-fighting. As a result of its single director leadership structure, the CFPB has completed its mandated rulemakings on time and has the independence to take decisive action to protect consumers before bad practices threaten the economy. This bill will also make it more difficult for the CFPB to take the necessary actions to protect servicemembers, veterans and their families from financial abuse.
Below is a draft Email for sending to all Arizona Congressional District offices, which addresses why a strong CFPB with a single director is critical to preventing gridlock and ensuring that servicemember, Veterans and their families are protected from financial abuse.
When you are ready to forward the Recommended Message (at the end of this Email) to the offices of our Representatives, an easy way for you to do this is as follows:
- Click on “Forward” from this message.
- Edit the Recommended Messagethat appears at the end of the new Email if desired.
- Enter your name (and retired Rank if you are a Military Retiree) after the word ‘Respectfully‘ at the end of the message. And it is recommended that you include your full address below your name (and phone number if desired) to establish your credibility as a resident of Arizona.Include as much of this information as you may be comfortable with. Then delete all of the text in the new Email from the top of this message down to the top of these instructions
- Copy: ‘ House Financial Services Committee Vote on HR 1266 ’ and paste it in place of the original subject of your new Email
- Now copy the column of Staffer Email addresses shown below and paste it on the To:line above (put your cursor on the To: line above and then hit ‘Ctrl’ and ‘V’ simultaneously.. NOTE: If your Email system has problems with Email address separated by semicolon, change the semi-colons to commas.
- Then(very importantly) high light the blue line shown below (just above the salutation and text of the Recommended Message) and everything above it.
- Then hit “Delete”on your keyboard . That will leave just the message (edited as may have been desired) that now appears below where the blue line was as the text of your new Email. Be sure nothing appears before the salutation of the message, and that you have put your name and desired detail at the end of the message.
- Then you can hit “Send” to send your Email.
NOTE: If you should have any problems with any addresses (or get a rejection when trying to send your Email – just delete the problem address) and/or if you want to make a personal call to your Representative’s staffer on this issue, their phone numbers are also shown below
Another way to send that message is as follows:
- Copy and enter: House Financial Services Committee Vote on HR 1266 as the Subject for a new Email
- Copy the Recommended Messagebelow and paste it in the body of a new Email,
- Edit the draft text as may be desired and add your name at the end. And if desired (recommended), below your name add your home address, Email address and/or phone number if desired.
- Copy the column of Staffer Email addressesshown below and paste it on the To: line of a new Email.
- Be sure that only the message to our Representative’s staffer appears as the text of your message, with your name at the end.
- Then hit “Send” to send your Email.
. Collectively we can make a difference!
Arizona House of Representatives Staffer Email Addresses
Staffer
| Franks, Trent | Stephanie Hammond | Legislative Director | [email protected]; | (202) 225-4576 | ||
| Gallego, Ruben | Matthew Lee | Legislative Director | [email protected]; | (202) 225-4065 | ||
| Gosar, Paul | Michael Mansour | Legislative Assistant | [email protected]; | (202) 225-2315 | ||
| Grijalva, Raúl M. | Kelsey Mishkin | Legislative Director | [email protected]; | (202) 225-2435 | ||
| Kirkpatrick, Ann | Kenneth Montoya | Legislative Director | [email protected]; | (202) 225-3361 | ||
| McSally, Martha | Aaron Falk | Military Legislative Assistant | [email protected]; | (202) 225-2542 | ||
| Salmon, Matt | Greg Safsten | Legislative Assistant | [email protected]; | (202) 225-2635 | ||
| Schweikert, David | Michelle Stoika | Legislative Aide | [email protected]; | (202) 225-2190 | ||
| Sinema, Kyrsten | Alyssa Marois | Legislative Assistant | [email protected]; | (202) 225-9888 |
Recommended Message
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Staffer, please pass to your Congressional District Representative today.
Dear Representative,
While I may not be one of your constituents, I am sure that the concerns of Veterans statewide is of concern to you. I am therefore reaching out to you to express my concern about HR 1266,
HR 1266 will weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) by changing its leadership structure from a single director to a commission (see http://1.usa.gov/1h2TVis). Nearly every other bank regulator has a single director confirmed by and accountable to Congress. When regulators are structured as a commission, they often suffer from gridlock and unfilled positions that result from partisan in-fighting. As a result of its single director leadership structure, the CFPB has completed its mandated rulemakings on time and has the independence to take decisive action to protect consumers before bad practices threaten the economy. This bill will also make it more difficult to take the necessary actions to protect servicemembers, veterans and their families from financial abuse. Likewise, we are very concerned about possible amendments to other Legislation that seek to achieve the same harmful goal of HR 1266 and urge you to oppose both the bill and any similar amendments that weaken the CFPB.
I would like to particularly note the impressive track record of the CFPB’s Office of Servicemember Affairs and its work protecting servicemembers, veterans and their families from financial abuse.
A strong CFPB is critical to ensuring that lenders comply with new military financial protections: The CFPB has enforcement authority for the Military Lending Act, which was recently strengthened by the Department to Defense to close loopholes that allowed payday and car title lenders to target servicemembers with predatory loans. Examples of predatory loans that were made to servicemembers by abusing loopholes in the previous rules are available starting on page 31: http://bit.ly/1QDzSUb.
The CFPB continues to find violations of the Servicemember Civil Relief (SCRA) Act. The Office of Servicemember Affairs continues to document cases where servicemembers are not getting the critical interest rate protections on debts occurred before military service or protections against default judgments while deployed. One servicemember received an interest rate hike on his student loans and was unable to obtain the SCRA-mandated interest reduction even after repeated attempts. In another instance, a credit card company improperly sought a default judgment against a servicemember while he was deployed which affected his security clearance – a practice prohibited by the SCRA. (See http://bit.ly/1ekcgqh).
Servicemembers, veterans and their families continue to turn to the CFPB for help with financial issues. Servicemember, veteran and dependent complaints to the CFPB have risen steadily since July 2011. In 2014, the CFPB received more than 17,000 complaints from servicemembers, veterans, and their family members. In response to abusive practices, the CFPB has recovered more than $1.6 million in damages. (see: http://1.usa.gov/1glhB1Y).
I am asking you to urge your House colleagues who will be voting on this Bill in the House Financial Services Committee’ on Wednesday 30 Sep 2015 to vote in opposition to HR 1266 and any other effort to weaken the CFPB or put servicemembers, veterans and their families at risk of financial abuse.
Respectfully,
