I know this isn’t exactly Roland Burris yelling at Chris Matthew or anything, but I do wish that our local news outlets–the Grown Up Important ones–would spend any meaningful time covering Springfield for something other than budget fights and corruption scandals.
Thankfully, there’s Progress Illinois, which has been keeping a close eye on the effort to reform the usurious payday lending industry. They’ve got some bad news for us today:
On Tuesday evening, the industry won out again as the House Executive Committee rejected Rep. Julie Hamos’ (D-Evanston) SB 1435, which would have established reasonable interest rate caps and fair finance charges on these largely-unregulated loans. Eight members of the committee voted “Present.” “It’s a big disappointment for those who have been working hard on the issue for years,” Hamos told us from the House floor yesterday.
