SINEMA REPEATEDLY WENT TO BAT FOR THE PAYDAY INDUSTRY AS A SENATOR… INCLUDING ATTEMPTS TO WEAKEN THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU
SINEMA ALSO FAILED TO DISCLOSE CONSULTING FIRM WITH PAYDAY LENDING LOBBYIST
Today the Intercept reports on Kyrsten Sinema’s troubling ties to the payday lending industry —including $175k in contributions, the most of any active U.S. Senator. The piece also outlines how she actively worked against the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau’s efforts to rein in payday lenders’ predatory behaviors — and failed to disclose her business dealings with a payday lending lobbyist.
Excerpts below:
The Intercept: Kyrsten Sinema Founded Consulting Firm With Arizona Figure Tied To Payday Loan Industry
Daniel Boguslaw // February 13, 2023
[…] Since her own impoverished upbringing, Sinema has championed the very same businesses exploiting Americans in poverty, chief among them the payday lending industry. Such lenders have donated more cash to Sinema than any other sitting senator.
Before taking tens of thousands of dollars in campaign cash from payday lenders for her congressional races, Sinema joined forces with a sometime ally of the industry to form their own company.
In 2007, according to Arizona LLC filings, Sinema started a consulting firm with her friend and former Democratic state Rep. Chad Campbell, a major backer of industry-backed bills in the legislature who would go on to become a payday loan industry lobbyist in Arizona.
Sinema’s alliance with Campbell foreshadowed her political transformation, an evolution that, as her power grew in national politics, saw the onetime progressive shun her roots as a Green Party member and anti-war activist to embrace the very industries she once railed against.
The firm, Forza Consulting LLC, remains active, according to filings, though there is no public indication of corporate activity. Campbell and Sinema are the principals in the company, with Sinema listed as manager, alongside former Democratic state Rep. David Lujan.
[…]
In Congress, Sinema consistently took positions aligned with payday lenders.
[…]
Community Choice Financial, one of the payday lenders represented by the Arizona Financial Choice Association, has donated $21,000 dollars to Sinema since 2016.
The donations were part of Sinema’s haul from payday lenders. She has received the most money of any active senator from the industry, $168,000, and comes in third as among lifetime industry recipients, behind Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Forza Consulting LLC, the firm Sinema started with Campbell, has not appeared on any of Sinema’s U.S. House or Senate disclosure forms, despite the company’s active status. Another consultancy she incorporated, Sinema Consulting LLC, does appear in disclosures.
[…]
Long before her departure from the party, Sinema consistently rebuffed consumer protection advocates’ attempts to regulate the payday lending industry and repeatedly championed lending groups. She attempted to block reform efforts and sponsored legislation to shield loan companies from federal oversight.
In 2016, she joined Republicans in signing a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, condemning the agency’s work reining in payday lenders. In just two days — the day before the letter was sent and the day it went out — she received over ten thousand dollars in donations from the payday lending industry.
In July of the same year, she voted against an amendment that would have stripped language from a House appropriations bill attempting to defund the CFPB’s efforts targeting predatory lenders. She also co-sponsored the Consumer Protection and Choice Act, which sought to shield payday lenders from the CFPB by substituting federal regulatory authority with pro-lender legislation. […]
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