It ain’t over ’til it’s over

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The anticipated last gasp attempt by the predatory payday lender industry that was to occur Wednesday with a strike-everything amendment to H2035 was called off yesterday on the account of a lack of votes in the committee.

Excuse me if I do not celebrate prematurely. With the ever present threat of a strike-everything amendment, I won't celebrate until sine die. As Yogi Berra said, "it ain't over 'til it's over." Arizona Capitol Times » Lobbyist: ‘Payday statutes are going to evaporate’: 

The Senate Finance Committee has pulled the plug on a bill that would have extended the life of the payday industry.

The committee was set to hear on April 7 a “strike-everything amendment” on a bill that was the industry’s final attempt to continue operating.

But the bill was abruptly removed from the agenda April 6.

“The proponents never had the votes for this,” Sen. Jack Harper, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an email that was forwarded to the Arizona Capitol Times.

This latest development almost surely means the end of the payday industry in Arizona, barring some highly unusual Legislative maneuvering.

The industry is set to sunset on July 1.

Lee Miller, a lobbyist for the industry, confirmed as much.

“It means the sunset date is going to arrive and the payday statutes are going to evaporate out of the box,” Miller said.

“We did not have enough time, given where we are in the calendar, to assure ourselves and to assure members that, yeah there were enough votes all the way through, all the way to the ninth floor. So we won’t waste anybody’s time,” he said.

Sen. Debbie McCune Davis, a Democrat from Tempe and a critic of the industry, said the industry is indicating that “it’s the end of it.”

An Arizona sunset is a beautiful thing.