Whitehouse: States Should be Able to Protect Citizens from High Interest Rates

In this speech on the Senate floor, Sheldon discussed his Interstate Lending amendment to the Wall Street reform bill. The amendment would restore to the states the ability to regulate interest rates within their borders.

For over 200 years, each state had the ability enforce usury laws against any lender doing business with its citizens. Then, in 1978, a Supreme Court case opened up a loophole through which big national banks have been able to avoid state law interest rate caps. The Whitehouse Amendment would change the law to make clear that credit card companies and other lenders no matter there in the country they are located must abide by the interest rate limits of the states in which their customers reside.

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News & Politics

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• Sheldon Whitehouse
• Senator Whitehouse
• Rhode Island
• Marquette amendment
• Credit Cards
• Interest Rates
• Senate
• Wall Street reform