Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I thank the chairman. I guess as the old song goes, what a long, strange trip it has been to get to this vote. But I appreciate very much the chairman's efforts and the ranking member's efforts that have allowed this vote.

I thank the cosponsors who have helped me work so hard on this legislation: Senators Cochran, Merkley, Durbin, Sanders, Levin, Burris, Franken, Brown of Ohio, Menendez, Chairman Leahy, Senators Webb, Casey, Wyden, my distinguished senior colleague from Rhode Island, Jack Reed, Senator Udall of New Mexico, and Senator Begich, who is now Presiding.

I am very proud of that support and very proud of the support of over 200 consumer groups for this legislation, including AARP, Consumers Union, National Consumer Law Center, Public Citizen, and Common Cause. That is a blue ribbon group of consumer supporters, and it is just the tip of the iceberg of a large organizational push to correct an inequity in American society that arises out of an inadvertent loophole that the Supreme Court created 30 years ago.

This vote presents all of my colleagues a clear, stark choice. Whose side you are on will be defined by your vote on this amendment. If you are on the side of the big out-of-State banks that are marketing into your home State and that are forcing your home State citizens to pay 30 percent and over interest rates even though those interest rates might be illegal under your home State laws, then you will cast your vote against this amendment and in favor of those big out-of-State banks charging that exorbitant interest. If you support it, you are taking the side of your home State citizens who are being gouged right now by banks over which they have no control because they are pitching their business into the home State from elsewhere and the home State laws, because of this peculiar Supreme Court loophole, have been held not to apply. If you vote in favor of this amendment, you are voting in favor of your home State's laws.

This is not a reach of Federal authority. This is traditional federalism and States rights to honor the laws of the States whose citizens sent us here and who wish to protect them from abusive interest rates.

If you vote in favor of this amendment, you are also voting in favor of your community banks, your local State-chartered banks, which don't take advantage of this loophole, which don't create their headquarters in a faraway State that gives them zero consumer protection restriction and allows them to target their marketing against the laws of the home State. The home State banks have to play by the laws of the home State, and this would level the field for your home State banks.

So it is a pretty clear and stark choice: Are you for your home State citizens, are you for your home State's laws, are you for your home State's banks or do you want to take your stand today with the big out-of-State banks whose interest rates are unregulated, whose behavior is in conflict with 200 years of American history and every civilized legal tradition dating back into the mists of time? Every major religion has limited usury. Every civilized legal code has restricted the ability of one individual to harm another by charging them exorbitant interest rates when they are in need.

This is the aberration we are facing right now. We have the chance to fix it. We have the chance to fix it in a way that is justified and proven by 202 years of history in the United States and thousands of years of tradition before that. I urge my colleagues to stand up for their fellow citizens against these out-of-State banks.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

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