Don Wells

Corporate front group Stand Up Missouri had an astro turf "rally" Wednesday in Jefferson City. The keynote speaker for the event was Missouri State Represenative Don Wells (R- Kwik Kash). His Pro-Payday Loan Industry speech mostly equated the highlights of legal loan sharking to tired empty sound bites such as "free enterprise", "small business", and emboldening references to the Declaration of Independence. The crowd wore matching blue Stand Up Missouri hats and jackets. Paid for with money sucked out of our local economy by out-of-state bankers no doubt.

Excerpt from his speech:
 

From the Missouri News Horizon: "An amendment that would require presidential candidates to present proof of natural born citizenship was trimmed from an omnibus election law reform bill. The amendment was removed, along with several others, by a joint conference committee in hopes that the final bill can pass by the end of the legislative session on Friday."

It's great to see reasonable people prevail on this matter, especially given the many birther and birther-curious legislators in the General Assembly.

Good news: "A House-approved payday lending bill is dead for this year, but two senators — one Republican and one Democrat — say they plan to write a much tougher measure in time for next year’s session."

The Post-Dispatch reminds Republicans in the General Assembly that the payday lending reforms proposed by Rep. Mary Still (D-Columbia) and others are patterned after federal legislation credited to Sen. Jim Talent that "limited the financial damage payday-loan companies can inflict on military families."

PAYDAY LOAN HYPOCRISY: MISSOURI GOP FORGETS EXAMPLE SET BY JIM TALENT

...The debate about payday loans shouldn’t be about politics; it should be about fairness and justice.

And that’s why we bring Mr. Talent into the debate. We could bring in former Gov. Matt Blunt, the Republican who sought to remove payday-loan facilities from nursing homes. Or U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, the uber-conservative congressman from Tarkio who sponsored a measure similar to Mr. Talent’s.

"It's an open secret throughout the state that this is a joke...It’s an open secret throughout the state that this is not real reform."

Rep. Jake Zimmerman (R-St. Louis County) on the payday lending legislation pushed by Reps. Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash), Ellen Brandom (R-Sikeston) and the payday loan industry

It's pretty hard to stand up on the House floor and defend 1564% APR, but Representatives Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash) and Ellen Brandom (R-Sikeston) did a pretty good job yesterday. They were able to extol the necessity for and the virtue of the sharks in the water of the short term loan. Sandy "I'm a Banker" Crawford (R-Buffalo) said she felt a lot better about payday loans after the March hearing before Financial Institutions. Was it the slick lobbyist, the paid UMKC kU hack economist, or Mr. QC Holdings himself who convinced her that predatory lending is indeed a service all states should want? Maybe it was the expensive shoes, the odd razor haircuts, or the genial repartee that identified the lender as the benevolent banker and stellar community member who is just helping friends and neighbors through a temporary time of need. In order to appear as a serious and respected policy expert, Mr. QC was allowed to testify for informational purposes, not as an advocate, adding a new tool for the promotion of self interest.

Debate became contentious Tuesday afternoon as the bill's detractors explained the "reform" offered by HB656. The truth about the bill was just too much for Speaker Pro Tem Shane Schoeller, and he gaveled the end of debate without a vote. Are there some defenders of the liberty to charge what you want who don't want to go on record supporting such egregious rates? Miss Liberty knows the Industry will decide if a vote is taken.

This weekend in the Post-Dispatch:

Under the guise of “reform,” the Missouri House of Representatives has advanced a bill that actually would loosen restrictions on the payday loan industry. That’s pretty galling, given that Missouri already is one of the friendliest states in the union for short-term lending sharks.

In playing footsie with the payday lending industry — which contributes hundreds of thousands of dollars to their campaigns — Missouri lawmakers are bucking a trend in which 17 other states have cracked down on the industry. Included are the rock-ribbed Republican states of Arizona and Montana...

The [House Financial Institutions Committee] vote in favor of the bill [Ellen Brandom's HB656] was 13-3. Among those voting aye was the committee chairman, Republican Don Wells of Cabool, who recently sold his interest in Qwik-Cash of Cabool.

Area Republicans joining Mr. Wells were Scott Dieckhaus of Washington and Vicki Schneider of O’Fallon. Proving that predation knows no party, two area Democrats also voted aye: Jamilah Nasheed of St. Louis and Mary Nichols of Maryland Heights.

They should all be ashamed.

Rumor has it that the Sharkmeister Speaker Speaker Tilley was lurking in the hall outside Don Well's (R-Kwik Kash) Financial Institutions hearing last week.

Doobie Wrap Ellen Brandom and Kwik Kash were able to get all the Republicans to go on record voting FOR an APR of 1564%. This is pitched as reform by the predatory lenders legislative sponsors, but is really just the Payday Lenders Protection Act.  Will Birther Tim Jones and Sharkmeister Tilley bring it to the floor and proudly vote for a rate that would make Al Capone blush? We'll keep you posted.

Yesterday, Rep. Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash) likened the non-existent threat of Sharia law in U.S. courts to the polio epidemic. Props to Rep. Jason Kander (D-Kansas City) for making sure no one misunderstood or overlooked this absurd and offensive analogy.

[Wells] went on to compare Sharia law to a disease, like polio.

Rep. Jason Kander, D-Kansas City, stopped him to confirm. "Sharia law is like polio?" Kander asked. "Absolutely, as far as I'm concerned in this country," Wells responded.

Polio is a debilitating disease that reached epidemic proportions in first half of the 20th century and ultimately infected over 450,000 people in the U.S. alone. Sharia law is a red herring exploited by fear mongering politicians to incite fear and avoid addressing the real issues affecting Missourians. So yeah, pretty much the same thing.

Interestingly enough, the immediate inspiration for Wells’ deep thoughts that day was the testimony of “former terrorist” –turned-evangelical Kamal Saleem, who appears to be a complete fraud. (Saleem, who has worked for Focus on the Family, once claimed he was descended from the “grand wazir of Islam,” which has a nice ring to it but is apparentlynonsensical.)

Reps. Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash) and Paul Curtman (R-Pacific) "both agree there’s no evidence that state courts are judging cases based on Islamic principles or foreign laws," reports The Star. 

But nevertheless, these two freedom-loving constitution-loving conservatives want to fool with Missouri's constitution because "I think it’s just absolutely a guarantee to my children and grandchildren that in the future they will live under the same laws that I grew up under."

The good news here is that the General Assembly has plenty of time for xenophobic crap like this because every Missourian who wants one has a job, our schools are fully funded and there aren't any problems in 2011 that require attention.  

Rumor has it that Don Wells’ Financial Institutions Committee was treated to dinner by the Pay Day lending industry last night.  Miss Liberty remembers that Mr. Wells (R-Kwik Kash) is a pay day mogul in Cabool. He is also the same committee chairman who wants unanimous votes only. Dissenters are sent to the hall. Is the smack down because reform might be afoot?

Orly Taitz would be proud

The Missouri General Assembly continued its proud tradition today of teasing and supporting the completely insane right-wing conspiracy that President Barack Obama is actually a illegal Kenyan immigrant. 

As summarized by the Star's Jason Noble:

HOUSE BILL 283: RETURN OF THE BIRTHERS!

Questions apparently remain about President Barack Obama‘s citizenship and eligibility for the office he’s held for the last 25 months.

That was the clearest conclusion from this morning’s hearing on House Bill 283, which would require the Missouri Secretary of State to verify the citizenship of all presidential and vice presidential candidates appearing on the state’s ballots.

The News-Leader reports that bill sponsor Lyle Rowland  (R-Cedarcreek) couldn't say "how many times a non-citizen had been on the ballot as a presidential or vice presidential candidate."    A few weeks ago, Rowland told Politico that "we have problems with illegal immigrants. And if something were to happen where one of them became popular with the people, we need documents proving if they are a citizen."

Sadly, there is no space between the fringe and mainstream GOP on this issue in Missouri.  Majority Floor Leader Tim Jones and then-Rep. Cynthia Davis sued a certain president in 2009 with Orly Taitz, alleging that he was an illegal Kenyan immigrant who happened to become popular with the people. Sen. Roy Blunt may be the highest ranking birther-curious official in the country; he declared during his Senate campaign that birthers were asking "legitimate" questions about Obama's birth records, and scolded journalists in Southwest Missouri for lacking the "capacity to talk about that [Obama's citizenship] in a legitimate way."

Speaker Steve Tilley continues to blame his shameless support for predatory lenders and the outrageous actions of Republican leaders like Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash) on Mary Still:

When the conversation turned to payday loan reforms, Tilley blamed the lack of progress personally on State Rep. Mary Still, a Columbia Democrat who worked for Jay Nixon in the Attorney General's Office. Still has sponsored a payday loan every year since she was elected in 2008

"Mary is not the easiest person to work with on either side of the aisle,"Tilley said. "She's had no luck getting anything achieved."

If Tilley, the previous Most Powerful Man in Missouri or any of the other leaders who control what bills pass or don't pass in the House cared about their constituents, they'd change the law.  But they care about the profits of the lenders like Wells, so they don't.  It's very simple.

Great news: 107 members of the Missouri House of Representatives want to amend the state's constitution to prohibit "the use of international law or Sharia law by state courts."  Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash) is the primary sponsor, and the full list of co-sponsors is here.

The ability of state legislators to waste time and money on avoid dealing with actual issues facing Missouri's families never ceases to amaze. 

What will not surprise you, however, is that this is part of a national campaign by Republican legislators to drum up hysteria about the non-existent threat of Sharia law. 

Rep. Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash) has had enough with this whole democracy bullcrap.  Perhaps inspired by other countries' sham voting processes we've heard so much about in recent weeks, Wells has instructed members of his Financial Institutions Committee that dissent and open voting will not be tolerated in his domain. 

These are the instructions from Wells to members of his committee, as summarized in an email from ranking member Mary Nichols (D-Maryland Heights) to colleagues this week:

*All votes will be unanimous.  The Chairman has told members that if they cannot vote with the Chairman they should excuse themselves from the meeting until voting is complete.

How 'bout that freedom, huh?  If I were a member of that committee, I'd vote against the Chairman at every opportunity, just because I could. 

Wells' respect for the democratic process was revealed last year when he conducted a sham "hearing" on behalf of his fellow payday lenders (he owns a Kwik Kash in Cabool) in which he refused to allow any contrary perspectives to be heard. 

Rep. Ellen Brandom (R-Sikeston) is distributing legislation to House colleagues today that she says would call for "significant reforms" regarding payday lending in Missouri.  But early indications are that its alleged "reforms" are significant only in how little they do to reign in abusive practices. 

According to Rep. Mary Still (D-Columbia), Brandom's "pro-industry bill" would still allow payday loans to have annual percentage rates up to 1,450% (down a smidgen from the current 1,950% maximum).   This would still be the highest allowed rate in the country, followed by Mississippi at a relatively meager 572%.

Who could have guessed that legislation blessed by Speaker Steve Tilley (R-Perryville) and Rep. Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash) would be so awesome?

"The payday industry is supporting the bill."

Randy Turner speaks the truth in this week's column about Missouri Republicans' inability to move beyond conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's birth certificate: 

At a time when Missourians are suffering due to the continuing harmful effects of a downward-spiraling economy, the last thing we need to see is our legislators pandering to the extreme fringes of their constituency. Put Missourians back to work and put the birthers back under the baseboards where they belong.

This year's birther adventure comes in the form of HB 283, sponsored by Lyle Rowland (R-Cedarcreek) and co-sponsored by Mike Kelley (R-Lamar), Kevin Elmer (R-Nixa), Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash), Darrell Pollack (R-Lebanon), Don Phillips (R-Kimberling City), Shane Schoeller (R-Willard), Barney Fisher (R-Richards), Melissa Leach (R-Springfield), Stanley Cox (R-Sedalia), Tom Loehner (R-Koeltztown), Dave Hinson (R-St. Clair), Lindell Shumake (R-Hannibal), Jason Smith (R-Salem), Andrew Koenig (R-Winchester) and Diane Franklin (R-Camdenton).

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that an informal working group organized by Speaker Steve Tilley has been meeting with lobbyist for the payday lending industry -- but not members of the public or consumer advocates -- and they think they have something that they might call "reform" that may or may not do anything to limit the industry's predatory practices. From reporter Rudi Keller's story: 

The eight-member group, never formalized as a committee, has been meeting with representatives of the industry but has not held public hearings on the issue. Tilley, R-Perryville, and House Democratic Leader Mike Talboy, D-Independence, were members as was Rep. Don Wells, R-Cabool, and chairman of the House Financial Institutions Committee, Tilley said yesterday in a session with reporters.

In that discussion, Tilley said the bill he expects would reduce the number of times a borrower can renew a loan and impose at least a one-day waiting period for taking out a new loan. Tilley said he was not sure yet whether the bill would lower the legal interest rate, which is a maximum of 1,955 percent. A recent state report shows the average annual interest rate on the loans, typically for as long as two weeks, is 443 percent...

As to why she has been shut out of Tilley’s attempt at crafting legislation, [Rep. Mary] Still said she believes she is too strong an advocate for consumers. “Maybe the fact that I have been successful in articulating the issue to the public makes him want to dismiss me,” she said. “My proposal is exactly the proposal of Jim Talent, a Republican who wanted to protect military families.”

Speaker Steve Tilley knows that he and his GOP colleagues are on the wrong side of the payday lending issue, so he's turned to personal attacks on Rep. Mary Still, the driving force for reform in the Missouri House:

Still complained today that she was not asked to be a member and was not allowed to speak when she attended meetings of the group.

Tilley said the panel was not a formal committee and was not required to hear from everyone with an opinion on the loan companies.

“Over the past few years, for both sides, Republicans and Democrats, she [Still] has been a kind of polarizing person on this issue, and she hasn’t been very successful,” Tilley said. “Hopefully we can come up with a solution that can actually work. Filing a bill and throwing bombs and never getting anything accomplished doesn’t help very much.”

Tilley's assertion that Still is somehow responsible for a lack of movement on payday lending reform legislation is absurd and pathetic.  By all accounts, the Republican leadership -- including Tilley, then-Speaker Ron Richard and payday loan shop owner Don Wells (R-Kwik Kash)-- who went out of their way to block a vote on Still's legislation.  Indeed, House Dems moved last April to pull Still's bill from the sham committee run by Wells and Rep. Mike Cunningham (R-Rogersville) after Wells presided over an outrageous one-sided "hearing" for predatory lenders to praise themselves.  This is what the Tribune's Hank Waters wrote about House Republicans' "low-jinks" last year:

PAYDAY
Conflict of interest, in spades

When first I read about the low-jinks of Rep. Don Wells, it was hard to believe. This week the Cabool Republican staged the most self-serving House committee hearing possible to imagine.

Acting in behalf of the ailing chairman of the House Financial Institutions committee, Wells held what he called a “lending presentation,” in which payday loan promoters were invited to explain the values of their industry but the other side was excluded.

To compound the outrage, Wells himself is owner of a payday loan business.