AFFIL Thanks Senator Brown for His Vote Against Preemption

AFFIL is a national organization, but we do live in Massachusetts.  So, along with some other groups here in MA, we’ve been talking with Senators Kerry and Brown about financial reform.

We gave Senator Brown a particular shout out for breaking ranks with all the other Republicans and voting against preemption.  As mentioned below, the preemption situation in the current Senate bill could be improved, but it could also be worse.  And Senator Brown voted against the very bad amendment from Senator Corker.  Here’s what we said in our thank you note to him:

Thank you for standing up for consumers and voting yesterday against the Corker amendment to S. 3217.  This amendment would have given the federal government sweeping ability to preempt or override states’ capacity to protect their own residents from dangerous and deceptive practices of banks and other financial institutions.

Your vote against this amendment is a significant step forward for consumers in the Commonwealth.  We especially applaud you for taking this step to protect consumers since all the other members of the Republican caucus voted for the amendment.

Read the whole note here (PDF). Thanks to Greater Boston Legal Services, Jobs with Justice, MASSPIRG, NCLC, and Business for Shared Prosperity for joining us in sending this letter.