A WaPo Correction

A few weeks ago I blogged about a curious op-ed which ran in the Washington Post by Charles Steele, Jr, President of Southern Christain Leadership Conference (SCLC). The op-ed sought to trash a piece of legislation which is taking shape in Congress designed to curb abusive credit card practices.

I’m sure there are some provisions that need to be refined a bit, but it looks like Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) is off to a good start. Having the leader of a “civil rights” organization take up the fight on behalf of credit card companies seemed a bit odd, especially when SCLC has entered into a partnership with a firm (CompuCredit) that was recently sued by the federal government for preadatory practices. I noted this connection in my blog post.

Well, the Washington Post issued a clarification.

“The June 23 op-ed by Southern Christian Leadership Conference chief executive Charles Steele Jr., on inequalities in access to credit, should have noted that the SCLC has a partnership with CompuCredit Corp. that includes plans to issue SCLC-branded credit cards that are marketed by CompuCredit.”

Good for the Post, I guess. Perhaps the claification should have inclued information about the lawsuit as well?

The story gets a bit weirder. The Post’s In the Loop column reports today that Steele is upset that a more recent op-ed, also taking up the case of credit card companies was not written by him. It seems a lobbying firm wrote and submitted the piece under his name but without his knowledge. They are making it out to be a mystery over at SCLC but it seems like it would be pretty easy to get to the bottom of the matter by asking the newspaper editors who sent them the article. The episode sure calls into question who is driving the ship over there at SCLC. They may want to re-examine their choice of partners.

Meanwhile, Representative Maloney and her allies are poised to hold hearings on the Credit Card Bill of Rights Act. The bill has the support of the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union, as well as the freshman Senator from Illinois.

Proponents claim the bill will require credit card companies to stop applying unfair interest rate hikes retroactively to balances incurred under the old rate; assessing interest charges on balances already paid off; requiring pay off of balances with lower interest rates before those with higher rates; and charging late fees even though consumers mail their payments seven days in advance of the due date.

If it does what it is setting out to do, then I like it too. Regardless of what the SCLC and their lobbyists say.