H. 410 - Credit Union Updates - The Whole Truth And Nothing But...

  If you tell the N.C. House Banking Committee that they have been under-informed and misled about H. 410 - Credit Union Updates, then you better be able to back it up, don't you think? Believe everybody would answer yes to that question!  So lets work on it a little. 

But while we work forward, do keep two other questions in the back of your mind: 1) What should our State Representatives (and especially the primary sponsors - Julia Howard and John Bell) do about H. 410, if in fact they have been under-informed and misled? and 2) What should be done with those who didn't tell the whole truth? Be thinking about those two questions.

First, lets go back and repeat that our State Representatives are wildly busy folks dealing with an almost unimaginable array of complex fiscal, political, and public policy issues. No individual representative can be an expert in all these difficult, often technical issues. With H. 410, our representatives must rely to a great extent on the expertise and integrity of the leaders and lobbyists advocating for the bill - in this case that would be the Carolinas' Credit Union League (CCUL). 

So, lets start with a real simple fiction that has been put forth by the CCUL about one of the changes and benefits which will accrue to N.C. state chartered credit unions if H. 410 is passed. Credit unions will be able to offer safe deposit boxes! Representative Howard pointed this out specifically in her summary of H. 410 at the House Banking Committee meeting on 4/20/2023. [You can listen to the recording of the meeting at the ncleg.gov website with Representative Howard beginning her review @ 2.00]. The truth is state-chartered credit unions have been offering safe deposit boxes for over a quarter century. Check it out [Summitcu.org in Greensboro]  or simply call any SECU branch - 10,000+ members have boxes at SECU! Who put this fiction in Representative Howard's talking points? Why?

Minor point you say? Perhaps, but it gets worse and worse in H. 410! Representative Howard's colleagues on the Committee are sitting there believing she is telling them the truth. Second point, as you can hear on the audio, Representative Howard proceeds to advise her colleagues that the most important issue in the bill is achieving parity with federally chartered credit unions. ["Parity" simply meaning being able to do the same things]

PARITY FOR STATE CHARTERED CREDIT UNIONS HAS BEEN IN NORTH CAROLINA LAW SINCE 1975! Here it is [look it up if you have doubts!]:

"54-109. (25)   Notwithstanding any other provision of this Chapter, the Administrator of Credit Unions, subject to the advice and consent of the Credit Union Commission, and upon a finding that action is necessary to preserve and protect the welfare of credit unions and to promote the general economy of the State, may adopt rules allowing State-chartered credit unions to engage in any activity in which they could engage if they were federally chartered credit unions. "

Again, who is putting these words - that are indisputably inaccurate - in Representative Howard's report to her colleagues on the banking committee - and to the entire House? And, why?

H. 410 is calendared for its next vote in the House Rules Committee at 8:45 today  (4/27/2023). Let's see if the primary sponsors - Representatives Howard and John Bell - persist in reading fiction as fact to their colleagues in the House! You can stream it live if you like at ncleg.gov.

Go back and reread the two questions in the second paragraph...

 

... it's one thing for the CCUL to make clowns out of you, me, your staff and your members. It's quite something else to try and do so to our elected representatives...and all North Carolinians.