Payday lenders take Ohio ballot battle to court

COLUMBUS (AP) — Payday lenders fighting to repeal a statewide crackdown on their industry on Monday sued two of Ohio’s top elected officials, arguing that repeated hurdles the lenders have faced in getting the issue on the November ballot are unconstitutional.

An industry group called the Reject House Bill 545 Committee claims in the suit filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court that a failure by Attorney General Nancy Rogers and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to act promptly on its proposed ballot language violates its rights to try to overturn the law. Rogers has failed to certify three versions of the group’s petition language.

“An attorney general can’t do anything to impede the process. They have to move it forward,” spokeswoman Kim Norris said.

Ted Hart, a spokesman for Rogers’ office, said the office was studying the lawsuit and would defend a long-standing state law in court today that establishes procedures for getting a referendum on the Ohio ballot.

“We get 10 business days to examine the language and see whether it’s a fair and truthful reflection of what’s been proposed,” Hart said. “It has been the practice to return those in less than 10 days. In this case, this has been a pretty complicated and lengthy issue.”

He said two versions of the language are currently before Rogers. The 10-day window on one ends today; the window on the second ends Monday.

The suit challenges a law that has been on Ohio’s books in some form since 1930. Most recently revised in 2006, the law empowers the attorney general to certify summary language — telling voters what the issue’s about — after she deems it to be “a fair and truthful statement of the measure.”

Hart said attorneys general have been reviewing ballot summaries for at least 30 years.

Norris said past Ohio attorneys general have traditionally honored the spirit of a constitutional guarantee not to impede voters’ rights through the process. She said delays caused by Rogers are unusually lengthy, though, taking up much of the time the law allots for gathering the needed signatures to get the issue on the ballot.

“But the bigger picture is that there’s nothing in the Constitution that allows the attorney general to review any ballot language. You have to let the people decide,” she said. “We are saying this process violates the power of the people to repeal a state law.”

Those who spearheaded the long battle to pass the crackdown have strongly lobbied Rogers to reject the industry’s wording of the repeal.

Their major complaint is that none of the committee’s three summaries has made clear to voters the most fundamental change brought by the new law: capping rates on payday loans at 28 percent.

In rejecting the first summary, Rogers asked the group to rephrase the issue so that it was clear to voters that they would be rescinding the rate cap.

Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio, urged rejection of both pending summaries in a letter to Rogers last week. He argued that the industry’s wording is still neither clear nor concise; omits key consumer protections provided by the law, including the rate cap; and attempts to confuse voters by never mentioning the phrases “payday loan” or “payday advance loan.”

“The replacement language, which awaits action by Ms. Rogers, is equally deceptive,” he said Monday.

Lenders argue their revised summaries contained a combination of the exact language of the law and the official legislative analysis of the bill.

In a hearing today, the committee will ask a judge to immediately halt enforcement of the law that gives Rogers the ability to sign off on the group’s summary language.

The suit came the same day Cash America International Inc., a pawn broker and cash advance provider, said it expected to post a second-quarter profit of 62 cents to 64 cents per share — up about 10 cents from previous expectations.

The company said it has not yet closed any of its locations in Ohio as a result of the new law. The company said in May that the change could force it to close up to 139 Ohio locations.