Before moving on, I feel I must give a hat tip to Republican Del. Dave Nutter, who is quoted in the above story as supporting tighter regulations for payday lenders. It's not very often that a conservative comes out for new regulations; this is certainly a testament to how truly awful payday loans actually are, and proof that Nutter, at least on this issue, gets it.
But does Mr. McDonnell get it? One of the most-repeated memes in Virginia politics is that payday lenders have deep pockets and politicians reap the benefits. I was interested in finding out how true that is in this particular election, and I headed over to our good friends at vpap.org.
It turns out that at least one payday lender in Virginia has been quite kind to Bob McDonnell's gubernatorial campaign. McDonnell received $10,000 from Ace Cash Advance, which is based in Irving, TX. McDonnell is the only candidate who has received money from Ace Cash Advance in this election, though they also donated $2,000 to the Virginia GOP Senate caucus. A bit of Googling will bring you a few horror stories from Consumer Affairs, such as this one:
Ace Cash Express began calling me at home, no big deal. I was polite with them although they were very rude, and said enjoy the money loser! before hanging up on multiple calls.
Then Ace decided to call my work. I am a supervisor of a night call center, and when they call there is no secretary at night so I pick up the phone when there is a call. So when Ace called at 4:30 PM (shortly after I had arrived) I explained that I cannot receive calls regarding this at work. The girl said she did not care, and would continue to call until I paid. I explained that that is against the law specifically the FDCPA and I asked for her name, and explained I would be contacting her supervisor, as well as, the attorney general, and a lawyer if they were to call my work again.
Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/ace_cash.html#ixzz0Udj9hzN9
There are plenty more tales like the one above, and it doesn't seem to be that uncommon among "lenders" of that sort.
To be fair, $10,000 is a relative drop in the bucket when you're talking about a nearly $20 million campaign. Then again, it's also nothing to sneeze at. And it raises an important question: did McDonnell actively seek that funding, or did Ace Cash Advance just feel like chipping in a few bucks? Either answer is disconcerting, to say the least; if McDonnell courted the money, he either doesn't know or doesn't care about what these types of lenders are doing to Virginians. If Ace Cash Advance simply ponied up the money out of the blue, then it's fair to assume they think they will benefit from the policies of a Governor McDonnell. I wonder if he'll have to pay back that $10,000 at 1,000% interest later on? *snark*
Another payday lender, Check Into Cash of Virginia, was a bit more bipartisan in its approach, though it still gave 71% of its donations to Republicans. From this company, it was $1,000 each for McDonnell, Bolling and Cuccinelli. Bonus: they also gave $250 to Del. Danny Marshall. Marshall represents part of Henry County, which has more than its share of payday lenders--13 in just a two mile stretch of U.S. 220, with even more throughout the area.
This is not to say that Democrats have spotless fundraising records--looking through some of Creigh Deeds' donors can be downright discouraging. But it's awfully hard to imagine predatory lenders being reigned in under a ticket that was partially funded by those very same interests, especially when that ticket seems wedded to the failed deregulate-everything ideology of the past twenty years. More broadly, it's hard to imagine much of anything changing in Virginia until we get our archaic campaign finance laws in order. It'll be interesting to see whether either one of the two men running for governor has the guts or vision to actually try and pass meaningful campaign finance reform. If their donors have anything to say about it, I have my doubts.
To be fair, $10,000 is a relative drop in the bucket when you're talking about a nearly $20 million campaign. Then again, it's also nothing to sneeze at. And it raises an important question: did McDonnell actively seek that funding, or did Ace Cash Advance just feel like chipping in a few bucks? Either answer is disconcerting, to say the least; if McDonnell courted the money, he either doesn't know or doesn't care about what these types of lenders are doing to Virginians. If Ace Cash Advance simply ponied up the money out of the blue, then it's fair to assume they think they will benefit from the policies of a Governor McDonnell. I wonder if he'll have to pay back that $10,000 at 1,000% interest later on? *snark*
Another payday lender, Check Into Cash of Virginia, was a bit more bipartisan in its approach, though it still gave 71% of its donations to Republicans. From this company, it was $1,000 each for McDonnell, Bolling and Cuccinelli. Bonus: they also gave $250 to Del. Danny Marshall. Marshall represents part of Henry County, which has more than its share of payday lenders--13 in just a two mile stretch of U.S. 220, with even more throughout the area.
This is not to say that Democrats have spotless fundraising records--looking through some of Creigh Deeds' donors can be downright discouraging. But it's awfully hard to imagine predatory lenders being reigned in under a ticket that was partially funded by those very same interests, especially when that ticket seems wedded to the failed deregulate-everything ideology of the past twenty years. More broadly, it's hard to imagine much of anything changing in Virginia until we get our archaic campaign finance laws in order. It'll be interesting to see whether either one of the two men running for governor has the guts or vision to actually try and pass meaningful campaign finance reform. If their donors have anything to say about it, I have my doubts.
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