Abbott escorted the loansharks into Texas in '06

Matt Angle waves to the media and says, "Over here, folks. The ballgame has moved back onto the playing field".

Greg Abbott’s office issued the key document that has allowed payday lenders to operate outside of Texas usury laws and exploit Texans across our state. A letter issued from the office of the Attorney General carefully lays out that payday lenders in Texas can take advantage of a loophole used by credit service organizations to avoid Texas laws preventing unscrupulous lending. It is essentially a “how-to guide” for payday lenders to expand and grow their predatory lending businesses.

Payday lenders had been nervous about expanding their operations in Texas, but Abbott’s letter gave them the go-ahead they needed. The respected financial industry publication American Banker reported how payday lender Ace reacted to the Abbott letter:

"The Irving, Tex., company originally saw too much legal risk in the CSO setup, in which payday specialists can collect as much as 20% in fees for arranging a short-term loan from a third-party lender. But this month Texas' attorney general, Greg Abbott, sent a letter to the state's Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner saying that CSOs are permissible. So on an earnings conference call last week Ace said it will begin brokering loans as a credit service organization sometime in the next two quarters." (American Banker, February 1, 2006)

The El Paso Times, once more, shows the Hearst affiliates locally how to cover the news.

State Sen. Wendy Davis is highlighting a 2006 letter by the office of Attorney General Greg Abbott that says there are no limits to the fees that payday lenders can charge.

Davis said the letter, which was written in a response to an inquiry by former state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso, set the stage for an explosion of high-interest lending that critics say exploits the poor.

[...]

Abbott's campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. It also has not responded when asked for more than a week whether Abbott believes the Texas payday lending industry needs to be reformed.

This is also top-notch explanatory journalism.

The concept of usury -- unconscionably high interest rates -- goes at least as far back as the Old Testament.

It's also part of the Texas Constitution, which says that in the absence of legislation, interest rates in the state are limited to 10 percent a year.

Lenders that are licensed and regulated under Texas law face caps of their own. Commercial loans in most instances can't exceed 18 percent except when the loan is greater than $250,000, when they can't exceed 28 percent.

Auto loans can't exceed 27 percent. Short-term loans by licensed lenders can't exceed 150 percent and pawn loans can't exceed 240 percent.

But the letter by the attorney general that was released Monday said fees associated with payday and title loans have no limits.

So what Abbott did not only violates the Texas Constitution... but the Bible, too.  That reality is going to rock his Christian army's world.

Please, go read the whole thing.  So when you see former conservative bloggers who consider themselves devout Catholics taking up the cause of the poor, picked-on payday lenders in the comments of what's left of the sagging Houston conservative blogosphere... you know that desperation has really set it.

Now if you want the straight story, no spin, then read Wayne Slater.  If Abbott and company really wanted to say something truthful and still damaging about Davis in this matter, then they would point out that she's taken money from payday lenders also.  About one-tenth the amount he has.

Bay Area Houston skewers it again, much to the cringing rage of other sad-sack Christian conservative blogging Republicans (the small caucus of those without a shred of common sense).

The Frigid Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is turning up the thermostat as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff ponders the potential political future of Houston mayor Annise Parker.

A Green candidate's long-distance bid for Congress got picked up by the mainstream media, just a week after PDiddie at Brains and Eggs blogged about it. The story raises the larger issue of whether Texas might benefit from a jungle primary for Congressional seats, as occurs in California, Louisiana, and Washington state. And that's an open question.

Texpatriate published a brief summation of 2013's major political events.

Eye On Williamson posts on the three Texas Republican money men who passed away last year: Texas GOP lost three sugar daddies.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme hopes that the La Villa school district and the city end their water dispute. The kids suffer enough under Republican rule; why add to their misery?

Neil at All People Have Value started off the New Year with the message that the work of freedom is up to each of us. All People Have Value is part of NeilAquino.com.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Jason Stanford tells Texas Democrats to embrace their underdog status.

The Texas Living Waters Project reviewed the year in water news, and Texas Clean Air Matters did the same for Texas air quality news.

Lone Star Ma explains what "bubble kids" are and what they have to do with the classroom instruction other kids get.

New Media Texas gives four reasons why blacks should support immigration reform.

Nancy Sims looks ahead to November.

SciGuy lists the top five stargazing events for 2014.

Juanita Jean wonders if David Dewhurst knows what day of the week it is.

Chron picks up Don Cook's long-distance bid for Congress

Carol Christian didn't link to me, but that's cool.

A familiar face among Houston's progressive political activists is running for U.S. Congress to help create buzz for the Green Party.

Nothing too unusual there, except Don Cook is running in Congressional District 13 in the north Texas panhandle, some of which is 600 miles from his home.

Thanks to a little known provision of the U.S. Constitution, congressional representatives don't have to live near their constituents - as long as they're in the same state. Even if the state is huge.

This falls under the "any publicity is good publicity" header.

He acknowledges that he's running not so much to win the office as to raise the profile of the Green Party.

"I really feel that the Green Party sees problems that other people aren't talking about, and solutions to problems that people do see (that) are being ignored," he said.

For example, he said, Congress recently voted to end subsidies for wind power but has kept them in place for oil companies.

"There are many areas to explore in the interaction of government and people," Cook said.  Another issue, he said, is how well residents of densely populated districts are represented.

"We should remove districts altogether," he said. "They're all gerrymandered, anyway."  It would be fairer, he said, to elect all 37 of Texas' congressional representatives statewide.

"It eliminates gerrymandering and promotes proportional representation," he said.

Cook has indicated to me in an e-mail this morning that he's pretty certain 37 is the wrong number for Texas Congressional seats... but he's not saying Carol misquoted him.

In seeking a district with a lot of land and a low population, Cook said he considered some in west Texas. But when he looked up District 13 in Wikipedia, he read that it's the most Republican district in the nation.

"That just warmed my heart," he said.

Cook's candidacy, which he announced last month, won't be official until the Green Party nominates him at its statewide convention in April, Cook said.

"I have to convince the delegates that it's better to have me run than not have the party represented," he said.

It's doubtful to become a campaign issue in 2014, but go back and read what Gadfly and Greg said in the comments here.  If Texas held a jungle primary for all 36 members of the House of Representatives that looked sort of like a municipal election for an at-large seat on city council... would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

Three states already do it.  It's debatable whether it strengthens or weakens one of the two dominant political parties, or whether it translates into more moderates of either stripe going to Washington.

A lot of redistricting quarrels would vanish (good).  It may result in even more Texas Republicans in Congress (bad).  With perhaps more than a hundred names appearing on every Texan's ballot, and with instructions to vote for their favorite three dozen... is that too complicated for the average (read: mostly non-) voter?

What other advantages or disadvantages would be involved?  I still like the idea of a geographically based representative, but as with so many things about our current system, it's been corrupted by avarice and ignorance.  But I'm keeping an open mind.  Somebody want to make a case for or against in the comments?