<\/strong>Honestly, I think you have to be a masochist to work for social justice in MIssouri.<\/p>\n

Case in point:\u00a0 the recent effort to get an initiative on the ballot that would allow voters to put a cap on payday lending in the state.<\/p>\n

I say \u201crecent effort,\u201d but in fact some people have been working on this for more than a decade.\u00a0 An organization called Communities Creating Opportunity in Kansas City has been working to get some regulation into the payday loan industry for 13 years.<\/p>\n

Payday lenders (along with those who loan money in exchange for your car title, and the notorious \u201crent to own\u201d outfits), dot the Missouri landscape like boils on a suffering Job.\u00a0 In some rural areas there are three or four around the courthouse square.\u00a0 In urban areas, they set up shop in low-income communities, where their victims are frequently people of color or recent immigrants.<\/p>\n

Because these outfits charge exorbitant interest rates for short-term loans (in Missouri, the average rate is 445 percent, but it can go as high as 1,000 percent if the borrower repeatedly renews the loan), advocates have for years tried to bring some justice into the system.\u00a0 Missouri legislators, many of whom receive hefty campaign contributions from out-of-state payday lenders, have resisted every attempt to regulate the industry.<\/p>\n

Finally, in 2011, enough people got fed up to tackle the issue head-on.\u00a0 A group of grassroots advocates, working as Missourians for Responsible Lending, developed a petition to get the issue on the ballot in November 2012.\u00a0 The petition called for payday loan interest rates to be capped at 36 percent, which is the exactly what the Federal government allows lenders to charge members of the active-duty military.<\/p>\n

Today, these grassroots advocates are wiping the grass stains off of their petitions.\u00a0 They have been felled by the Roundup of the payday loan industry.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take the money-changers long to bring in their big guns.\u00a0 Last winter, as petitions began circulating and people began talking about the abuses of the industry, leaders of churches and synagogues across the state received letters from a law firm in Grapevine, TX.\u00a0 The letter warned clergy (erroneously, but who cares about the facts) that their institutions could end up losing their tax exemptions if they supported the petition drive.<\/p>\n

When lies and intimidation didn\u2019t work, the profiteers tried other tactics.\u00a0 Hundreds of signed petitions were stolen from a car in southwest Missouri,\u00a0 Petitioners were harassed on the streets.\u00a0 Fake petitions were printed and circulated in an effort to confuse voters.\u00a0 Deceptive ad campaigns were launched.\u00a0 Millions of dollars were spent before industry leaders resorted to the courts, where they used every avenue available\u00a0 to assert that hundreds of thousands of legally signed and verified petitions did not qualify for the ballot in November.<\/p>\n

It was too much for the good guys.\u00a0 In a real-life version of Survivor, the predatory lenders, unencumbered by morals or ethics, were able to outspend, outwit and outlast them.<\/p>\n

It was a sad irony that Missourians for Responsible Lending announced that they were suspending their legal challenges on Labor Day, a day set aside to honor workers and their many contributions to our communities.\u00a0 Give Missourians a Raise, also a grassroots effort to collect signatures on a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage in Missouri, also threw in the towel on Labor Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite Missourians\u2019 clear desire to have both initiatives on the November ballot, we have reluctantly concluded that the legal hurdles erected by the payday lending industry, their allies and their lawyers are too high for us to cross before the September 21 deadline for finalizing the November ballot,\u201d said the Rev. James Bryan, treasurer for Missourians for Responsible Lending.<\/p>\n

Advocates for reform are vowing that they are not giving up, and I don\u2019t doubt that they will be back to fight again.\u00a0 But I\u2019m beginning to wonder if the supply of masochists might be running dry in Missouri.<\/p>\n

Payday lending reform and increasing the minimum wage are just two issues that have been beaten back in this state.\u00a0 We\u2019re now on our third try in ten years to increase our cigarette tax, which is the lowest in the nation.\u00a0 Our legislators have vowed not to expand Medicaid (never mind that it would bring millions of dollars into the state; it\u2019s a part of—gasp—Obamacare<\/em>!)\u00a0 In our last legislative session we witnessed our leaders pitting healthcare for the blind against funding for higher education.\u00a0 We still have the death penalty in this state and dozens lined up on death row.\u00a0 We don\u2019t bother to collect taxes on purchases made on-line and our tax code hasn\u2019t been modernized since the 1930s.\u00a0 Yes, we are the Show-Me State.<\/p>\n

Masochism is defined as \u201ca pervasive pattern of self-defeating behavior.\u201d\u00a0 If this sounds like one of your character defects, I welcome you to join us in Missouri and pick one of these issues to work on.\u00a0 We\u2019ll show you frustration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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