Congress has concluded the 111th Congress. Below is a summary of credit union efforts from California and Nevada during the 111th Congress. Be sure to check back for regular updates on our 2011 agenda. At any time you can show your credit union support on these important credit union issues visit Connect for the Cause.

2010 Legislative Highlights
The 2009-10 Congressional session was the most active for credit unions since the passage of the Federal Credit Union Act. California and Nevada might represent only two of our 48 state delegations, but we were undoubtedly the leaders in our fights nationally.

Interchange
While the House version of the Financial Regulatory and Wall Street Reform legislation did not originally contain the Durbin-Interchange language, more than 120 House bipartisan Members of Congress formally opposed the Durbin amendment in a letter to the Conference Committee. Led by Reps.Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Marchant (R-TX) the letter urged that the Conferees to the regulatory reform bill object to the Senate language on interchange fees in the final conference report. California co-authors included: Reps. Baca (D), Bilbray (R), Davis (D), Filner (D), Herger (R), Napolitano (D), Nunes (R), Dreier (R), Rohrabacher (R), McClintock (R), Schiff (D), Woolsey (D), Richardson (D), and Sherman (D).

Reps. Issa (R-CA) and Hunter (R-CA) co-authored their own letter to the House and Senate Conferees asking them to not include interchange in the Wall Street Reform bill. Rep. Thompson (D-CA) sent his own letter to the Conferees, as well.

Roughly 150,000 constituent letters were sent from our credit union employees, volunteers, and members. When compared with the national letter count from CUNA and the other credit union leagues around the nation, California and Nevada represented roughly 25 percent of all letters sent to Congress regarding interchange fees. This total does not include the numbers of phone calls and faxes gathered at teller windows across the states. Additionally, more than 60 credit union representatives from California and Nevada traveled to Washington, D.C., for a last minute fight over interchange fees.

Member Business Lending (MBL)
Credit unions moved the MBL fight further than ever before. For the first time, the House and Senate introduced stand-alone bills to address the MBL cap. Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) led the fight in the Senate until the very end of the lame-duck session. California and Nevada contributed the co-sponsorship of Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Boxer (D-CA). The California delegation early-on recognized the potential job creation benefits of extending the MBL cap and worked with the League staff to find innovative methods of gaining the necessary 218 votes to pass.

Co-sponsors of H.R. 3380 from CA include: Royce (R), Baca (D), Berman (D), Bilbray (R), Calvert (R), Chu (D), Eshoo (D), Filner (D), Gallegly (R), Herger (R), Honda (D), Hunter (R), Issa (R), McClintock (R), Napolitano (D), Richardson (D), Rohrabacher (R), Loretta Sanchez (D), Sherman (D), Speier (D), Stark (D) , Waters (D) and Woolsey (D).

The Department of Treasury also vocally supported credit union legislation. More than 19,000 letters from California and Nevada credit unions were sent to Congressional members urging support for MBL.

Reps. Royce (R-CA), Sherman (D-CA), Filner (D-CA), Rohrabacher (R-CA), Farr (D-CA), Stark (D-CA) and Woolsey (D-CA) made additional efforts at our request to include MBL as part of other legislative packages.

In the fight to the end, MBL advanced further than any credit union legislation since H.R. 1151. While the outcome is not what credit unions had hoped, the degree and level of credit union advocacy did elevate the issue within the halls of Congress.

Safeguarding The Bottom Line
Mortgage Cram-down: Credit unions actively lobbied against mortgage cram-down from the beginning. The potential costs of mortgage cram-down would have been absolutely detrimental to all credit unions. Not only did this prevent mortgage losses in the millions if not billions of dollars, but preserved the reputational losses of credit unions which issued safe and sound loans.

Credit Card Act: Nevada credit unions reached out to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), to make a technical fix to the CARD Act. While numerous efforts to include interchange provisions ultimately failed to gain traction in the Credit Card Act, Reid pushed the technical fix through and it was quickly signed into law with multiple levels of savings to credit unions. Staff time and operational costs aside; this fix saved credit unions from potentially confusing their members with multiple bills, statements, and payment notices.

Overdraft Legislation: California and Nevada credit unions sent our delegation more than 6,100 letters opposing damaging overdraft legislation. Congress had proposed limiting overdraft/courtesy pay programs to one per month, no more than six per year, with a $25 cap. By contrast, the Federal Reserve’s regulation required consumers to simply “opt-in” to receive overdraft protections.