August 31, 2010 09:18 PM UTC

Payday Lenders Write Fat Checks to GOP Senate, House Efforts

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

At the same time as Attorney General John Suthers was taking a total of over $10,000 from various sources tied to the payday lending industry–donations now the subject of controversy as Suthers’ office proposes new regulations on the industry–more evidence has emerged that payday lenders are intensely focused on Colorado races this fall up and down the ballot. And although the industry has made donations from time to time to officials from both parties, there’s no question now which side they expect to favor their interests next January:

This is a filing for a $25,000 check cut by Ace Cash Express, one of the largest payday lenders in the nation, to the Colorado GOP’s Senate Majority Fund 527 last month.

This one is a little harder to directly track–the entity Coloradans for a Better Future was registered only last year, but sources tell us in no uncertain terms that this $25,000 check represents the other half of Ace’s commitment–to the House side of the GOP’s ‘independent’ expenditures. Now, at the risk of sounding naïve, given how the industry said over and over that this year’s legislation reforming payday lending would ‘drive them out of Colorado’–isn’t it kind of odd that they still have tens of thousands of dollars to give to the Colorado Attorney General, and to spend extolling the “better future” offered by Republican legislative candidates here?

No, folks, this isn’t an industry in the midst of being “driven out”–they are doubling down.