Advocates urge support of proposed short-term lending rules
Civil rights advocacy groups and others are praising a federal proposal announced Thursday that seeks to tighten short-term lending regulations and are urging consumers to weigh in during a 90-day public comment period. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking to require lenders to prove that borrowers are able to repay money without taking out additional loans and give additional warnings before debiting borrowers’ accounts. The federal proposal comes as states including Alabama look to strengthen rules governing payday and auto-title lending. Alabama launched a payday-lending database in 2015 to enforce a law that limits consumers to having no more than $500 in payday loans at once. A bill that would have given borrowers up to six months to repay loans failed in the Legislature this year. The Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center is encouraging consumers to participate in the CFPB’s 90-day public comment period on the proposal. “In Alabama, we have repeatedly seen consumers facing tough economic times turn to these lenders only to discover, after it’s too late, that they intentionally trapped them in a cycle of unaffordable debt,” SPLC senior staff attorney Sara Zampierin said in an emailed statement. Arise Citizen’s Policy Project analyst Stephen Stetson said the proposals are a step in the right direction, but more attention is needed on high interest rates associated with short term loans. Stetson said in a statement that yearly interest rates for payday loans can be as high as 456 percent and 300 percent for auto title loans. “We would like to see rules that address the affordability of the loan directly. We don’t just want to see the lenders making a cursory check, you know?” Stetson said. “We don’t want to just see an additional layer of paperwork applied to the process. And most importantly, we don’t want lenders to be able to tweak their products to get out from under the rule.” Max Wood, president of the lending trade group Borrow Smart Alabama, said the proposals could effectively eliminate much of the short-term lending industry and leave many consumers with virtually no options during a financial emergency. “The bottom line is that if the rules go into effect as proposed … 70 to 80 percent of the industry will no longer exist,” Wood said. “There is a large demand for this service and we don’t want to see it go away for the sake of the consumer,” Wood said. Payday lenders in 2013 filed a lawsuit to try blocking the lending database from being launched, but the Alabama Supreme Court sided with the state. Stetson said he expects similar lawsuits to follow the implementation of any regulatory tweaks. According to Wood, more than 300,000 Alabamians use short-term lending services. Alabama State Banking Department Associate Counsel Anne Gunter, however, said that as of Sunday more than 1.7 million short-term loans had been taken out since the lending database was launched in August. The loans average about $321 each and carry about $55 in interest, she said. “The demand is real and the demand is an important component,” Stetson said. “But just because somebody’s hungry doesn’t mean you should feed them poison.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
SPLC condemns Donald Trump retweet of “White Genocide” Twitter user
The Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is condemning “racist” remarks from Republican presidential front runner Donald Trump. On Friday, Trump used his official Twitter account to disseminate a message from @WhiteGenocideTM, an account that has claimed “Hitler SAVED Europe” and “Jews/Israel did 9/11,” while lashing out at another Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. The site is named for an idea, which is increasingly popular with “white nationalists,” that Caucasians in America are facing a “white genocide.” The concept has been popularized in modern days in Robert Whitaker’s “The Mantra,” which ends with the following phrase: “Anti-racist is code word for anti-white.” According to The Hill, the site shows its location as “Jewmerica” with a profile photo of George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party. “He’s endorsed an idea that has been one of the more powerful [ideas] that the white nationalist movement has made in some time,” the SPLC’s Senior Writer and Online Editor for Hatewatch Ryan Lenz said. “(White genocide) is a completely fabricated notion. The fact that he has endorsed an idea championed by Klansman and white nationalists is disheartening.” The tweet has already attracted attention from white nationalist organizations like Stormfront, an organization which describes itself as a “community of racial realists and idealists,” even going as far as to say they are “white nationalists.” In support of Trump’s comments, a Stormfront follower said the following on the organization’s website: “(T)his is a GOOD thing. (Trump) willingly retweeted the name. The name was chosen to raise awareness of our plight. Helped propagate it. We should be grateful.” Another user said “A resounding applause to you, Herr Trump. And please pay no mind to the anti-White idiots insulting you.” While Lenz would not go so far as to allege that such ideology is becoming common in the Republican Party, he noted that how the party responds will make all the difference in how such concepts are addressed by American conservatives. “What happens now relies on how the party responds,” Lenz said. “It does seem to be pushing the political conversation in a direction that the Republican Party might not be ready to handle.”
SPLC demands Chief Justice Roy Moore’s ouster over new gay marriage ethics complaint
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is calling for the removal of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore after news that Moore said state probate judges remain under a court order to refuse marriage licenses to gay couples despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage over six months ago. The SPLC filed a supplement Wednesday to an ongoing ethics complaint they have against the chief justice. “Chief Justice Roy Moore is once again demonstrating that he is unfit to hold office,” SPLC President Richard Cohen said. “Despite the fact that Alabama probate judges are under a federal court order that bars them from discriminating against same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses, Justice Moore has irresponsibly advised them to do the opposite. You would think after being removed from the bench once before that the chief justice would know better.” The SPLC complaint describes how it thinks Moore’s administrative order issued violates the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics, which instruct judges to “respect and comply with the law” and promote “public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” Following the complaint, the Judicial Inquiry Commission could recommend Moore face ethics charges in the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. That’s nothing new to Moore, who was removed as chief justice 13 years ago after refusing to comply with a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building in Montgomery. “Just as Chief Justice Moore’s previous refusal to comply with a federal court order disqualified him for judicial office and necessitated his removal from the bench, his advising other judges to violate a federal court order also requires his removal as Chief Justice of this state’s highest court,” the supplement from SPLC states. Moore doesn’t see it that way. He says the Alabama Supreme Court never lifted a March directive to probate judges to refuse licenses to gay couples. “Until further decision by the Alabama Supreme Court, the existing orders of the Alabama Supreme Court that Alabama probate judges have a ministerial duty not to issue any marriage license contrary to the Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment or the Alabama Marriage Protection Act remain in full force and effect,” Moore wrote.
Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center forced to reimburse Polk County expenses from frivolous lawsuit
After a decisive victory against the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center on allegations over the mistreatment of juveniles detained in the Polk County, FL jail, the Polk County sheriff’s office sued lawyers for the SPLC to recover $1.1 million in legal fees and expenses the department incurred defending the frivolous lawsuit. This week, a federal judge in Tampa ruled against legal sanctions that would force the SPLC to pay Polk County’s legal fees. “Given the law’s ‘demanding standard for imposing sanctions,’ the Sheriff’s claim falls (barely) short,” U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday wrote in his order. Merryday did however mandate the center reimburse the county $130,383 for expenses related to the lawsuit. This week, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd took to Facebook to tell Polk County taxpayers the good news: Back in April, I promised the taxpayers of Polk County that we would go after the legal costs and fees associated with this frivolous lawsuit, after U.S. District Court Judge Steven Merryday ruled in our favor that there was absolutely no evidence that juveniles in our county jail were being treated unfairly, as alleged by the plaintiffs. Not only did His Honor pen a 182-page ruling against their claims, he rebuked the SPLC for their legal arguments. As you know, I am very fiscally conservative, and we are always looking for ways to save money. When we have to spend money defending ourselves against ridiculous allegations such as these, we will pursue every avenue to recover costs allowable by law. We couldn’t be more thrilled that we were able to recoup some of those dollars.
