Tag: Rich Jones

Republican lawmakers have been arguing that nondiscrimination protections hurt small businesses.  The Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee wrangled with the issue this winter when Sen. Laura Woods (R-Arvada)...

A bill to increase fees on payday loans died Thursday, leaving consumer advocates happy and payday lenders less so.

Expressing concerns that loan sharks may become the new lenders for the poor, and saying they fear the loss of further jobs in a down economy, legislators Tuesday passed a bill to allow deferred deposit loan corporations to retain up-front fees.

A Democratic move to bring pay-as-you-go legislation to the Colorado General Assembly died in a Republican controlled House Committee on Finance today, an outcome sponsor Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Niwot, said was no surprise. The bill, HB 1052, died on a 6-6 vote.

The payday loan industry gouges Coloradans like it does Americans across the country, targeting mostly low-income single women, including military spouses. Denver Democratic state Rep. Mark Ferrandino tried and failed to introduce legislation in 2008 that would have curbed the worst of the abuses, where desperate borrowers take loans at hundreds of percent interest and enter a debt cycle they rarely are able to exit. Ferrandino may try it again this year.

DENVER — On Thursday the Bell Policy Center, a research and advocacy organization based here that seeks to promote economic opportunity, added its voice to the rising tide of concerned politicians, safety workers, and activist groups opposing Ballot Initiative 300, Denver's so-called impound initiative, which would require police to seize the vehicles of any drivers failing to carry a valid license. Initiative 300 is an updated version of Initiative 100, which passed last year. According to Rich Jones, director of policy and research for the Bell Center, Initiative 300 is not only fiscally unsound but is racially motivated.

With a record 18 proposals on everything from oil and gas taxes to unions to the developmentally disabled to gambling, Colorado voters will be weighing in on the longest ballot in Colorado since 1912 — and the largest in the United States this year.