AZ State Veterans Legislative Update 2 March 2016: S/E S.B. 1316 – Predatory Lending | MOAA CORONADO – MOAA 5 STAR LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE AWARD AND FIVE STAR COMMUNICATIONS AWARD FOR 2023

Subject for use on Email to be forwarded: S.B. 1316 S/E: ‘consumer lending; regulation, licensure’

SB 1316 passed in the House Ways & Means Committee meeting at about 7:15 PM on 29 February after over two hours of discussion and testimony where the Bill’s Sponsor, Lobbyists, Loan Industry Representatives and a Minister from one of the most vulnerable neighborhoods in Arizona provided their slanted rationale for the need for this legislation to help some of the most vulnerable of our citizens when in fact it is an outrageous debt trap for the victims and a boon for the lending industry.

The Bill is now expected to be on a House Caucus agenda and/or up for final vote on the House Floor within the next week or so.

The text of the draft message at the end of this Email high lights the issue that I am sure you are all aware of. So I don’t believe that I need any further recap of this now widely publicized issue. Below is the process for forwarding a brief Email (shown at the end of this message) urging all State Representatives to vote against SB 1316 whenever it comes up for a vote in the House.

Email addresses with Semi-colons for all members of the Arizona House of Representatives:

You might want to print this Email now to have the instructions below available to facilitate using this process.

Guidance for processing and sending your Email in the next day or so.

And when you are ready to forward the Message at the end of this text to all members of the House of Representatives:

Click on “Forward”from this message so that the attachment will be included with the message that will then be ready for final processing for sending. (Note: Clicking on “Forward”doesn’t send the message. It merely sets it up to complete the processes below before hitting “Send”).
Then delete the Subject line of the new message, and copy: S.B. 1316: S/E: ‘consumer lending; regulation, licensure’ here or at the beginning of the text of this Email and paste it on the Subject: line.
Edit the message that appears at the end of this message if desired and enter your name (and retired Rank if you are a Military Retiree) if desired (recommended) after the word ‘Respectfully‘ at the end of the message * (and if you are helping out, which we greatly appreciate, but are not a Veteran, delete the words ”as an Arizona Veteran” in the first line before sending it),. Enter your address if desired, but that might tend to make the Senators or their staff to delete your message if you are not a constituent before they read at least the first sentence in the message. And if you are a constituent or acquaintance of one or more of the Representatives, in addition to sending an Email to all of House of Representatives Members, please consider calling their office(s) with your concerns.NOTE: You can click here on www.azleg.gov then at that screen click on the “House” tab along the top of the page and then on “Members” on the drop down menu to access the telephone numbers of all members.
Copy the Email addresses with Semi-colons for all members of the Arizona House of Representatives:above (high light the addresses of all 60 members and then hit ‘Ctrl’ and ‘C’ simultaneously), and paste it on the Bcc: line (put your cursor on the Bcc: line above and then hit ‘Ctrl’ and ‘V’ simultaneously.

NOTE:

If you have problems with your system not allowing so many addresses at one time, break the group of 60 down into two or more groups for use in sending the message to those two or more groups.

And if your system rejects the use of Semi-colons separating the addresses, follow the above process using the group of addresses separated by Commas.

Now High Light the blue line shown below (place your curser just below the blue line) and sweep upward acrosseverything above it.
Then hit “Delete” on your keyboard . That will leave just the Draft Message that now appearsbelow the blue line as the text of your new Email.
7.Then when you feel comfortable that you have completed all the steps correctly, you can hit “Send” to send your Email.

Draft Message

Honorable State Representative,

While I may not be one of your constituents, I as an Arizona Veteran urge you to vote NO on SB 1316 when it appears on any House agenda. It would provide lenders with a new product called a Flexible Credit Loan that would enable them to charge up to 180% to 204% annual percentage rate on debt trap type consumer loans. For example on a $2500 loan (max allowed by the Legislation), it would require the borrower to make payments of over $2500 in the first six months (of the 2 years allowed by the Legislation) while reducing the amount owed on the principle by less than $100 and still owe over $7500 in payments on the loan. See page 2 of the attached for an example.

If that’s not enough to convince you that SB 1316 is a bad deal for Arizona, consider reviewing the two plus hours 29 February House Ways & Means Committee meeting video and listen to the testimony of the bill sponsor, Lobbyists, and in and out of State Loan Industry Representatives and ask yourself who is this Bill going to benefit most? And while it passed in a very partisan manner in the Ways & Means Committee, the nature of this Bill is not partisan. It adversely affects all vulnerable individuals regardless of party affiliation. Please don’t let it evolve to a partisan issue in any follow on vote. And please don’t let yourself, by voting YES, to possibly appear to be in the pocket of lobbyists who are so engaged in pushing passage of this Bill as may be the case for some who are pressing you to vote Yes on SB 1316 that would bring Payday Lending like loans (Flexible Credit Loans at usurious 180% to 204% annual percentage rates) back to Arizona after a resounding vote of the people to end payday lending in Arizona in 2008.

Respectfully,