The Texas Senate passed a payday lending regulation bill authored by Dallas Republican John Carona, but amendments to the original bill make it unlikely to pass in the House. (File 2010/Staff Photo)
On rare occasions, a bill becomes a runaway train.
State Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas)
That’s what happened on Sen. John Carona’s bill limiting the payday loan industry that has sprouted in the unregulated soil of Texas. More than 3,500 storefronts have mushroomed — more than the state has McDonald’s and Whataburgers, according to Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth.
Payday lenders give loans to low-income and fixed-income residents with little or no credit. It’s a risky business. But through loopholes in state law, the lenders have managed to pile up fees, rollovers and interest rates that can amount to 1,000 percent annually.
Davis has worked for years to cap and limit payday lenders. Carona wants to regulate them, but with less drastic measures.
He also was wary of how politically powerful the billion-dollar industry has become. He worked out a carefully balanced bill — it took small steps toward limiting the loans to a percentage of the borrower’s income. It wasn’t the best, he said, but it could pass the Legislature and the industry and its small army of lobbyists wouldn’t try and kill it.
State Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth)
But then the train started moving out of the station. Democrats like Davis started piling on amendments. The bill gained muscle. It put on stringent interest rates (36 percent) — low enough, said Davis, to probably kill the industry.
And thus doom the bill. It passed the Senate 26-4, but the House is a different train station.
Recognizing the bill had gotten away from him, Carona told his colleagues, with a defeatist comic flare, to go ahead and work their will: “I just want to go home and feed my cat.”