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Date published: 4/15/2008
By LARRY O'DELL ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
RICHMOND --Gov. Tim Kaine announced action yesterday on a slew of bills, including $8.9 million in additional spending in the state budget and a few technical amendments to legislation tightening regulations on payday lenders.Kaine also signed legislation toughening the law against animal fighting and proposed an earlier effective date for a measure regulating so-called "puppy mills," concluding his action on the 889 bills passed by the 2008 General Assembly. Lawmakers will reconvene April 23 to consider Kaine's amendments and previously announced vetoes. PAYDAY LOANS Neither the payday loan industry nor its critics were entirely happy with legislation extending the amount of time borrowers have to repay the high-interest, short-term loans and effectively limiting how many borrowers can get each year. The measure will take effect Jan. 1. The Virginia Organizing Project, a nonprofit social justice group that lobbied to reign in the payday lenders, had urged Kaine to offer amendments substantially toughening the compromise legislation. "In response to legislative expectations and agreements made, however, it appears that Governor Kaine considered his hands to be tied and could only offer clarifying amendments," the group's leader, Janice "Jay" Johnson, said in a statement. She said the organization "deeply regrets this decision." Jamie Fulmer, spokesman for industry leader Advance America, Cash Advance Centers Inc., said he appreciated Kaine resisting pressure to propose even tighter regulations in legislation that already threatens to put some lenders out of business. "The end result is still one of the most restrictive payday lending laws in the country," Fulmer said in a telephone interview. "It's quite certain some lenders are going to be forced to close as a result of this new law, and others will be significantly impacted." The bill establishes a database to track loans. Borrowers will be limited to one loan at a time and will have two pay cycles to repay it. A borrower who takes out five loans over six months would either be barred from getting another loan for two months or enter into a 60-day extended payment plan, then be prohibited from taking out another loan for an additional 90 days. One of Kaine's amendments makes clear that the borrower, not the lender, chooses which route to take on the fifth loan.
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