Yesterday, two nonbinding motions to instruct the conference committee on how to iron out the discrepancies between the House and Senate financial reform bills were put up for a vote from the Senate. (Emphasis on the “nonbinding” part; the instructions would offer to the conference committee the Senate’s ideas on how to proceed, but would in no way guarantee any alteration to the language of the final bill.)
One of these instructions was Sen. Sam Brownback’s proposal to exclude auto loan lenders from the control of the new federal consumer protection laws. This exemption already exists in the House version of the bill, and the White House is so adamant that it be removed from the final bill that there are whispers of a veto if it is not.
Now, we know that Sen. Blanche Lincoln fights the special interests and stands up for Arkansans. We know this because she has told us time and time again, and because President Clinton told us so. Oh, sure, she may have taken a ton of money from special interest groups:
Ms. Lincoln is a top recipient from the following industries during the 2005 – 2010 election cycle: Agricultural Services (#1); Auto dealers, new & used (#1); Crop Production (#1); Dairy (#1); Food Process/Sales (#1); Forest Products (#1); Meat processing & products (#1); Oil & Gas (#1); Poultry & Eggs (#1); Railroads (#1); Retail Sales (#1); Sugar cane & sugar beets (#1); Trucking (#1); Commercial TV & radio stations (#2); Health Services (#2); Electric Utilities (#3); Natural Gas transmission & distribution (#3); Student loan companies (#3).
And, sure, she may have voted against an amendment to the financial reform bill that would have effectively allowed the state of Arkansas to cap credit card companies ability to raise Arkansans’ credit card interest rates.
But Ms. Lincoln doesn’t answer to special interests or lobbyists. She answers to Arkansans.
Wait…what’s this?
So far in the 2010 election cycle, 44 senators have received $380,693 from the auto dealer
industry’s employees and political action committees (PACs), according to Public Citizen’s
analysis of data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org). The ten
largest recipients – seven Republicans and three Democrats – have received more than half of
the industry’s contributions to the Senate this cycle. The top two recipients are Sens. Blanche
Lincoln (D-Ark.) (who has received $40,000) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) ($31,050).
Interesting. Well, still, when it comes to something as obvious as voting against an exemption from consumer credit protections for an industry that almost every consumer will have to deal with multiple times in their adult lives, Ms. Lincoln will do what is right for Arkansans, I’m sure.
You know, at this point, the lies, half-truths, and outright hypocrisy coming out of the Lincoln camp have gone beyond your typical campaign puffery and have reached a level of being absolutely offensive to anyone who is paying attention. Blanche Lincoln continues to pretend like she cares about Arkansans and that she will fight for us, lobbyists and special interests be damned. Then she turns around and does exactly the opposite. What more proof do you need that Blanche Lincoln thinks voters are idiots who will believe anything and everything she says, regardless of whether the statement is true or contradicts something she said five seconds ago.