Payday Lending

Legislators gather tomorrow for the start of the 2012 General Assembly, and we wanted to share some of our priorities for the session.

A recent report by the Colorado Attorney General's Office on payday lending provides strong evidence that reforms enacted by the legislature in 2010 are working. Data for the last five months of the year – the period the reforms were in effect – suggest borrowers are paying much lower effective interest rates and are largely avoiding the cycle of debt that trapped many of them under the previous rules.

Dear Friend:

With Fall comes a noisy, busy season for organizations such as ours – a time that bears witness to our successes and the challenges before all of us. I ask, can you imagine Colorado without the Bell Policy Center?

Dear Friend:

Can you imagine Colorado without the Bell Policy Center?

Imagine if we hadn't written the seminal report on the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights in 2003, traveled the state to educate and build a coalition in 2004 or played a key role in passing Referendum C in 2005.

By Steve Raabe
The Denver Post

Consensus and compromise characterized the 2011 Colorado legislative sessions, leading to high marks from the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

In its third annual scorecard of state legislators, the chamber issued no grades below 50 percent. That's a reversal from last year, when the low mark was 16 percent.

The Bell's staff prepared a detailed wrap-up of the 2011 legislative session. It is contained in a special edition of The Opportunity News. Click on link to pdf.

By Rich Jones
For The Daily Camera

(CORRECTION: A guest opinion provided by the Bell Policy Center on page 7A Tuesday contained an error. The agency reported Tuesday that they were provided erroneous information by the attorney general's office. The opinion stated that "almost half" of payday loan borrowers had 16 or more loans in the previous 12 months. That number should have been 26.56 percent.)

In an editorial last Thursday, the Camera came out against a plan to change payday lending laws in Colorado. It said the legislation is "terrible."

The effort to undo payday lending reforms failed yesterday, and that means Colorado consumers are better off today.

It's a victory for hard-working Coloradans, and you helped.

A key moment in yesterday's tense back-and-forth was when the Senate held firm on its rules bill. That's when you spoke up, and we thank you for adding your voice to the chorus.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives took a risky and highly unusual step to weaken 2010's payday lending reforms and raise rates on Colorado borrowers.

The House did this by amending the annual rules-review bill – procedural legislation that implements hundreds of state agency rules and regulations.

By Marianne Goodland
The Colorado Statesman

Efforts to undo part of last year's payday lending reforms came to an end on Thursday, when the Senate Local Government and Energy Committee voted on a party-line 3-2 vote to shut down House Bill 11-1290.

The Local Government committee was the only one in the Senate without a clear supporter or sponsor of HB 1290, and it was sent the assignment of hearing HB 1290 from the Senate Finance Committee in a surprise move Tuesday.