COLUMBUS – A bipartisan proposal capping interest rates on short-term loans has cleared the Ohio House after languishing for more than a year.
The measure was approved by a 71-16 vote Thursday, one of a number of bills that were approved a day after a weeks-long impasse ended in election of a new speaker.
Payday reform proponents called the bill significant and long overdue.
“Today, members of the House made a clear statement: we will no longer allow disingenuous lenders to prey on already-struggling individuals who find themselves in need of a loan,” said Rep. Kyle Koehler (R-Springfield), who co-sponsored the legislation with Toledo Democrat Michael Ashford.
Republican former Speaker Cliff Rosenberger resigned in April amid an FBI probe into his lavish lifestyle and international travel that included trips involving payday lending lobbyists.
It took several weeks for majority Republicans to elect someone to serve in the office until the end of the year and allow the House to hold floor votes again.
The payday-lending bill, which now heads to the Senate, prohibits charging more than 28 percent interests plus monthly fees of 5 percent on the first $400 loaned, or a maximum of $20. Monthly charges can’t exceed 5 percent of a borrower’s gross monthly income.
An earlier Ohio law imposed the same interest-rate cap, but lenders found ways around it.
House members also sent to the Senate a measure that prevents nurses from being forced to work mandatory overtime. Proponents of the bill, which sat in limbo during the Speaker selection stalemate, will reduce fatigue among Ohio nurses, which can lead to mistakes.
Another bill would invest more than $100 million in state funds for counties to purchase new voting equipment and appropriates $10 million to reimburse counties who purchased new voting systems since 2013. Ohio was among 21 states whose election infrastructure was targeted by Russian hackers during the 2016 election. The legislation heads back to the Senate. If senators agree to House changes, the bill would be sent to the governor’s desk for his signature.
Another bill allows wrongfully imprisoned Ohioans to recover compensation if their convictions were due to prosecutorial misconduct.