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LCPPM Mission Statement:

Lutheran Coalition for Public Policy in Minnesota, in response to God's love, seeks to engage all people of faith in the promotion of public policy that supports peace, justice and care for all of God's Creation.

If you have any questions about our organization, the web site or wish to access your membership information, please contact Mark Peters. Your feedback is welcome.

 

Fulfilling our Responsibility to Care For Our Neighbors and Neighborhoods

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s (ELCA) "Social Statement, "Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All" (ELCA, 1999) is a benchmark for our role as Christians in economic life. Because of sin, we have fallen short of our responsibilities to one another in this world, but we live in light of God’s promised future that ultimately there will be no hunger and injustice. This promise makes us restless with a world that is less than what God intends. In economic matters, this draws attention to:

• The scope of God’s concern: "for all"
• The means by which life is sustained: "livelihood"
• What is needed: "sufficiency"
• Long-term perspective: "sustainability"

As the Minnesota public advocacy arm of the ELCA, the Lutheran Coalition for Public Policy in Minnesota (LCPPM) is working to fulfill our responsibility to care for our neighbors and our neighborhoods by promoting three legislative goals in 2010:

• Create Ladder Out of Poverty Task Force
• Close the Payday Lending Loophole
• Complete Streets for Safer Roads

Create Ladder Out of Poverty Task Force

This proposal creates an official forum for the continuing discussion and development of ideas to assist people living in or near poverty to get a foothold toward financial stability. It is a way to bring together the public, private, non-profit, academic, faith and philanthropic communities around a subject in which they all have an interest and a stake.

To read the full text of the bill in the House and in the Senate, click on the links below:
House File 2062 – Lead Author Representative Morrie Lanning
Senate File 1770 – Lead Author Senator Michael J. Jungbauer

Background

LCPPM has worked tirelessly to inspire and promote a statewide, ecumenical, interfaith movement to end poverty in Minnesota by 2020. This collaboration includes many people of faith and organizations under the umbrella of "A Minnesota Without Poverty" (LCPPM Executive Director Pastor Mark Peters serves on their Board). From these efforts the Minnesota Legislative Commission to End Poverty (LCEP) was established in 2007 and finalized its recommendations in January of 2010. The Ladder Out of Poverty proposal flows directly out of the solutions identified by the LCEP and has bi-partisan authorship.

Main Points to Emphasize with your Legislators

It emerges from Legislative Commission to End Poverty by 2020 findings and has bi-partisan authorship and is structured so that there is zero fiscal cost to the state.

• Focuses on building and maintaining financial assets as a key to leaving poverty permanently;
• Addresses predatory lending practices that erode or deplete financial assets, and supports increased financial literacy to enhance skills for achieving and maintaining economic self sufficiency;
• Establishes a Task Force to generate recommendations for the legislature to take action and draft policies that help Minnesotans to escape (or avoid) poverty through the accumulation and maintenance of financial assets.

At a minimum, the following will be included in Task Force recommendations:

• Expand Family Assets for Independence in Minnesota (FAIM), and other culturally specific IDA programs
• Support the development of non-predatory financial products and proposed regulatory actions to address predatory financial practices in Minnesota
• Provide incentives for financial institutions to offer alternatives to, and education about predatory financial products
• Assist efforts to offer financial education to low-income households

Close the Payday Lending Loophole

This proposal requires that all payday lenders follow the rate structure the legislature established for payday loans in 1995 under the Consumer Small Loans Act. To do otherwise is to violate the intent of the law regulating these transactions. 390% Annual Percentage Rate should be sufficient!

To read the full text of the bill in the House and in the Senate, click on the links below:
House File HF 3170 – Lead Author Representative Jim Davnie
Senate File 2837 – Lead Author Senator Kevin L. Dahle

Background.

A small number of lenders make the vast majority of payday loans in Minnesota. In 2008, three of the 32 licensed companies made 70% of the 231,000 loans made by Minnesota companies to Minnesota consumers. These companies have discovered a loophole in the law that permits them to charge significantly higher rates for exactly the same loan.

In 1995, the Minnesota Legislature authorized payday lending by passing the Consumer Small Loan Act. It capped the amount that could be lent and how much could be charged for the loan. Even under this law, annual percentage rates are exceedingly high. For instance, the APR for a $100 loan is 391%.

In 2003, some companies discovered, and thereafter began exploiting, an unintentional loophole in the law that allowed a payday lender – if big enough to become an "Industrial Loan and Thrift" – to lend at even more outrageous rates. These companies can make that same $100 loan for 693% APR (and if the loan is made as a "line of credit," they can charge 2,145% APR!).

The Industrial Loan and Thrift was never intended for payday lending. There is no justification for customers in one part of the state (or one side of town) entering into the exact same transaction but being charged dramatically different rates based on a loophole in Minnesota law.

For a detailed report on how Minnesota payday lenders are exploiting this loophole in Minnesota law, please read, “History Repeats Itself:  A New Generation of Payday Lenders Exploit a Legal Loophole to Pick Minnesotans’ Pockets” by Ron Elwood and Kari Rudd for Legal Services Advocacy Project. 

The LCPPM Policy Council identified Predatory Lending Reform as a top priority in 2009 and remains a top tier issue for 2010.

ELCA Policy Basis. "This church will support legislation, ordinances, and resolutions that guarantee to all persons equally: access to legal, banking, and insurance services." (Freed in Christ: Race Ethnicity and Culture. ELCA Social Statement - 1993)

"We call for: Appropriate government regulatory reform so that governments can monitor private sector practices more effectively and efficiently in an ever changing global economy." (Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All. ELCA Social Statement - 1993)

Complete Streets For Safer Roads

This proposal has the potential to transform the planning process Minnesota uses to build its transportation system taking into sharper consideration the following concerns: safety, public health, environment, access, traffic congestion, economic development and tourism.

To read the full text of the bill in the House and in the Senate, click on the links below:
House File 2801 – Lead Author Representative Mike Obermueller

Senate File 2461 – Lead Author Senator Tony Lourey

Background.

This policy means that our streets are planned and designed to be safer and more accessible for drivers, pedestrians, transit riders, and bicyclists – all users regardless of age or ability. Complete Streets is about flexibility – it is not a prescriptive one-size-fits-all roadway design. It recognizes that needs are different in urban, suburban, and rural areas. It is about building roads right the first time rather than through costly retro-fits. This does not create an unfunded mandate for local governments but will instead allow local cities and town’s flexibility to create safer roads based on their distinctive context. Complete Streets is all about maximizing the long term benefits from our transportation investments by working toward multiple goals such as: safety, access, public health, environment, traffic congestion, economic development and tourism. Complete Streets has bi-partisan support.

For more information on the Minnesota Complete Streets effort, visit www.mncompletestreets.org

Complete Streets For Safer Roads - Press Release (2/6/2010).

Complete Streets For Safer Roads - Download Complete Streets FAQ Sheet.

Complete Streets For Safer Roads - Star Tribune Editorial Dated 2/15/2010

ELCA Policy Basis. "We call for policies that promote stable families, strong schools and safe neighborhoods; addressing the barriers individuals face in preparing for and sustaining livelihood (such as lack of education, transportation, child care, and health care." (Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All, 1999)

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