Blackburn Votes to Protect Tennessee Small Businesses and Community Banks

Statement

Congressman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) today voted in support of legislation to put an end to Operation Choke Point, an initiative the Obama Administration implemented to coerce banks and other financial institutions into cutting off relationships with perfectly legal businesses. H.R. 766, The Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2015, was approved with a bipartisan vote of 250-169.

"Operation Choke Point is just another example of the Obama Administration using unconstitutional executive overreach to advance a political agenda. The Obama Administration is abusing executive power to target and smother perfectly legal industries it dislikes -- a clear abuse of power that hurts Tennessee small businesses and community banks by targeting industries such as payment processors, short-term lenders, tobacco distributors, and gun and ammunition stores. H.R. 766 offers a bipartisan solution to protect these mom and pop shops and puts a stop to this administration's draconian efforts to trample on the rights and livelihoods of American citizens," Blackburn said.

H.R. 766 would prevent federal banking agencies from abusing executive power when preventing businesses from using depository institutions. The legislation also requires a federal banking agency to provide a depository institution written justification of any request to terminate or restrict a customer account, unless it was based upon a belief that those customers pose a threat to national security.

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