Payday Lending

Gov. John Hickenlooper has signed into law a bill that will protect job-seekers from unwarranted scrutiny of their credit information when they apply for work.

The law, which originated as Senate Bill 18, prohibits employers from using credit information in making hiring or promotion decisions unless the information is "substantially related" to a job.

Federal legislation has been proposed that would undo payday lending reforms enacted in Colorado and many other states, and it would prevent states from regulating these high-cost loans in the future.

We're happy to say that Attorney General John Suthers has joined 40 other attorneys general in opposing this legislation. The Bell is a member of the Coloradans for Payday Lending Reform coalition, which sent out this release yesterday.

Colorado consumers saved nearly $100 million in 2011 thanks to changes in the state's payday lending law, according to data in a report released Monday by Attorney General John Suthers.

The report shows the impact of the first full year of reforms, which were a major achievement of the 2010 legislative session. A key feature of the reforms is a six-month minimum term for payday loans, which gives borrowers an opportunity to pay them off without rollovers.

Senate Bill 12-003

Rich Jones, Director of Policy and Research

Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee
February 13, 2012

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I am Rich Jones, the director of policy and research with the Bell Policy Center. The Bell is a non-partisan, non-profit research and advocacy organization dedicated to making Colorado a state of opportunity for all.

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.