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When in doubt, follow the money. Beth Van Duyne had the opportunity to protect financially vulnerable Texans in TX-24 from exorbitant interest rates and predatory loans — but instead, she sided with a “major player” in payday lending who had shelled out a double-max donation to her campaign just days before the vote.
Members of Congress from both parties came together to overturn a predatory Trump administration rule that allowed some lenders to dodge state interest rate caps and offer loans with enormous interest rates — even going as high as 299%. These “debt traps,” which pull borrowers in “long-term cycle of debt” for months, are particularly hard-hitting for Texas veterans: A 2019 survey in Texas found that “45% of veterans had used payday or car title loans, compared to 7% of civilians.”
But Beth Van Duyne didn’t vote to protect Texans from predatory lending practices. Instead, she stood with banks and predatory lenders just days after cashing a $5,800 max-out check from CEO Trevor Ahlberg of Cottonwood Financial, a “major player” in the industry.
In addition to Ahlberg’s double-max donation earlier this year, in 2020 he donated $8,400 to Beth Van Duyne’s campaign in a potential violation of FEC contribution limits, bringing his total contributions to Van Duyne’s congressional campaigns to $14,200. Last year, Cottonwood Financial was ordered to pay $1.3 million in redress and civil penalty for “unfair and deceptive” practices in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act.
The campaign cash from Ahlberg isn’t the first time the financial industry has bankrolled Beth Van Duyne’s political ambitions — she has accepted nearly $20,000 total in campaign contributions from payday lenders. In May of this year, Beth also took $2,500 from the PAC of Populus Financial Group, the parent of a company that offers payday loans. In 2020, the same group gave her $3,000.
“Beth Van Duyne went to Congress to vote against pandemic relief and do the bidding of her big campaign donors,” said DCCC spokesperson Monica Robinson. “Her vote to side with predatory lenders over Texas veterans sends a clear message: Beth’s been bought.”
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