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Wright Andrews

Master Of Disaster: The Go-To Washington Lobbyist For Financial Predators

Zachary Roth | March 11, 2010, 3:45PM


Wright Andrews

The same Washington lobbyist who led the sub-prime mortgage industry's successful bid to shoot down government efforts to curtail risky lending is now helping pay-day lenders to water down the financial-regulatory reform bill currently before Congress.

Wright Andrews has developed a niche representing some of the least sympathetic and most predatory players in the financial industry. A veteran lawyer-lobbyist and one-time aide to Democratic senator Sam Nunn, Andrews has lobbied extensively of late for a trade association for pay-day lenders -- which offer short-term, high-interest loans to the working poor, often triggering a cycle of debt for their customers. During the last decade, Andrews ran three different trade groups for the sub-prime mortgage industry, whose home loans defaulted in massive numbers to set off the financial crisis.

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Topics: Ameriquest, Barney Frank, Bob Corker, Campaign Contributions, Campaign Finance, Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Financial Crisis, Gregory Meeks, Lisa Andrews, Lobbyists, Pay-Day Lenders, Senate Banking Committee, W. Allan Jones, Wright Andrews

W. Allan Jones

High-Living Pay-Day Lender CEO Tied To Bid To Weaken Financial Reform

Zachary Roth | March 10, 2010, 3:55PM


W. Allan Jones

In the wake of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, a high-living, politically connected Tennessee businessman who made a fortune by lending money to the poor at sky-high interest rates has ties to a successful effort to water down financial regulatory reform.

Meet W. Allan Jones, who in 1993 founded Check Into Cash, a pay-day lending chain that says it now has 1,100 stores in 30 states. The company offers short-term loans designed to tide customers over until their next paycheck. But the interest rates can be as much as 400 percent on an annualized basis, meaning that they lead many borrowers to end up digging themselves deeper into debt.

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Topics: Bob Corker, Financial Crisis, Pay-Day Lenders, Senate Banking Committee, W. Allan Jones

Bob Corker

Critics Say Corker Broke Law for Land Deal

hughes | September 20, 2006, 4:28PM

E-mails recently obtained by the Memphis Commercial Appeal are strengthening critics' charges that GOP Senate candidate Bob Corker used his position as mayor of Chattanooga to advance a land deal between Wal-Mart and one of his companies.

The deal has already brought Corker trouble this election: because of a lawsuit against his company, he'll be forced to testify about the deal on October 20, just three weeks before Election Day. Recent polls show Corker in a dead heat with Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN).

Corker's critics charge that as mayor, he illegally bypassed the city council in the final stages of selling a piece of land abutting a conservation easement. Osborne Enterprises, a Corker-owned company, planned to build a road through the easement, but could only do so if they obtained an approved "letter of intent" to donate the road to the city. According to the Commercial Appeal, the e-mails from this period show that the letter didn't receive the approval of the city’s Planning Council until months after the land deal had gone through and development had already begun. Furthermore, the "letter of intent" seems to have been processed almost two weeks after Osborne sold the land to Wal-Mart, for $4.6 million. It only passed through the Council in September.

Corker’s political director, Todd Womack, insists that Corker's actions are “above reproach."

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Topics: Bob Corker

Bob Corker

GOP Senate Hopeful Gets Unwanted October Surprise?

Justin Rood | September 11, 2006, 12:07PM

In Tennessee, a new development in a three-year-old lawsuit may force new revelations out of the state's GOP Senate candidate, just weeks before the November election.

A judge today required Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker to testify and provide documents in response to a subpoena from a group of environmental activists with Democratic ties, who have filed suit over the former Chattanooga mayor's involvement in a questionable land development deal. Typically, such documents and testimony are public.

The judge ordered the information shared on Oct. 20 -- just three weeks before Tennessee voters are to decide whether he or Democrat Harold Ford Jr. will represent them in Congress. The two candidates are in a statistical dead heat, according to a new Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll.

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Topics: Bob Corker

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