April 24, 2009 06:25 PM UTC

Udall Spearheads Credit Card Reform Fight

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• by: Colorado Pols

Great piece from 9NEWS yesterday on what’s otherwise a curiously underreported story here in Colorado:

Susan Wones is about as far removed from the political spotlight of Washington, D.C. as you can get, but if Congress moves to reform how credit card companies do business, her fingerprints will be on that change.

Three years ago, Wones’ credit card nightmare started the same way as it has for many Americans.

“It was an introductory zero percent and all of a sudden, after the introductory period, I had one month and then it was jacked up to 32 percent,” Wones said…

“That story alone motivated me to step in and say enough is enough,” Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colorado) said.

He asked Wones to help him pass the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights by testifying before a House Committee. For Wones, becoming entangled in the political process was foreign territory, but she was motivated to bring change.

“I’ve had so many people come up to me and tell me their stories and tell me what they’ve been through,” Wones said. “It made me want to fight.”

When Wones did testify before Congress, her credit card company had one more surprise for her.

“Then when she came to Congress to testify as to her experience and her situation with the credit card industry, they didn’t treat her very appropriately,” Udall said. “They released her private personal financial records.”

Reforming the notoriously unfair practices of consumer credit card companies is a huge story right now with President Obama having publicly weighed in over the last couple of days, but Rep.–now Sen.–Mark Udall has been pushing this issue for years. It’s only now, as a Senator in a dramatically different Washington, that his Credit Card Holder’s Bill of Rights is gaining real traction–and even now in his usual demure style Udall has handed the bill off to allies in key committees, where guys like Chuck Schumer get most of the splashy national press quotes.

Of course, it’s not like Denver’s (only) newspaper of record, the Denver Post, is interested in reporting on this important story featuring Colorado’s senior U.S. Senator and an issue making headlines around the country. In fact this hasn’t been worth a single mention (Google and prove us wrong). This week’s round of intellectually bankrupt robopolls, on the other hand, complete with much chortling prognostication from Dick Wadhams? Story after story after story.

Something seems kind of, you know, screwy with that.