Progressive group launches ad campaign targeting Heller on prepaid debit card regulation rollback
A progressive advocacy group is launching a six-figure television and digital ad campaign urging Republican Sen. Dean Heller to oppose an efforts to roll back consumer protection rules on prepaid debit cards.
The group behind the ad, Allied Progress, is targeting Heller and senators in Maine and Alaska with the digital and television ad campaign running today through May 9th — the expected last date that Congress can act to nullify the proposed regulations.
Georgia Sen. David Perdue and six other Senate Republicans introduced a bill in February that would roll back implementation of prepaid debit card rules created by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in October requiring prepaid debit card companies implement similar overdraft protections and access to information required of major credit card companies and banks.
The ad warns that “new regulations could finally end ‘prepaid card gotchas’ unless the card companies get their way in Congress.”
“Call Senator Heller and tell him to keep pre-paid debit card protections in place to safeguard Americans from being played,” it says.
Purdue is attempting to use a procedural maneuver that allows Congress to undo any finalized regulation within 60 legislative days of it being approved. The Georgia Republican has the backing of at least 31 other Republican senators (not including Heller) who have co-signed the bill.
“As a business guy, I have experienced first-hand the impact overregulation has on growth and innovation,” Purdue said in a February statement. “This rule is entirely too broad and would cripple the electronic payment marketplace which Georgians and millions of consumers across the country depend on.”
The ad urges viewers to call Heller’s office and to visit www.prepaidHeller.org, which calls the attempted rollback “swamp politics at its worst.”
Allied Progress is headed by Democratic operative Karl Frisch, previously involved with Media Matters for America and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Heller has yet to take a public stance on the proposal, but a spokesman for the Nevada Republican criticized the CFPB as having “no measure of accountability” in a 2011 statement.
Watch the ad here: