Lobbying expenditures from the payday loan industry more than doubled from $2,045,000 in the 109th Congress to $4,182,550 in the 110th Congress, according to a new report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
The report, released Tuesday, finds that federal campaign donations by the employees and political action committees of 13 industry companies and trade associations “jumped 80% between the 2006 and 2010 midterm election cycles.”
Former Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-FL) was the largest recipient of payday loan campaign cash, receiving $53,900 from the payday industry in the 2010 election cycle, according to CREW. The group said the next largest recipient of donations from the payday lending industry was Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), who is the ranking member and former chair of the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions. Maloney received $48,400 in donations from the industry during the 2010 election cycle, said CREW.
Overall, CREW said the industry’s spending on lobbying “has skyrocketed, jumping 120% from the 110th Congress to the 111th Congress.”
“Once again, we see that money talks in Washington,” CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a statement. “As usual, money paid to lobbyists was well spent, but working Americans were left out in the cold.”
During the period in question the industry was able to kill legislative proposals which would have capped payday loan interest rates and limit the number of times people could use such loans, said CREW.
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