WASHINGTON -
Richard, the new general counsel for CUNA & Affiliates, was attending his first GAC in 1998 when House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) galvanized the crowd with the first of two historic moments that year, moments that proved to be both the best of times and worst of times in GAC's 33-year history.
"When you go to [Capitol] Hill this afternoon to visit your members of Congress, tell them that as of today I'm co-sponsoring your bill," Gingrich told the cheering crowd of 3,500 on Feb. 24. "As banks get bigger, it's even more important to have a strong, cooperative credit union movement that's locally owned."
The bill was the Credit Union Member Access Act, better known as H.R. 1151, designed to provide access to credit union services to any U.S. citizen who wanted it. The implications of he bill were as critical to the future of the credit union movement as Gingrich's announcement was historic. (The bill had been introduced even though credit unions were confident in a pending Supreme Court decision.)
"House speakers rarely sign bills," said Mica. "When he announced that he would sign our bill, that signaled a distinct change in the direction of the Congress."
Start Spreading The Bad News
The profound implications of Gingrich's support were still fresh in Richard's mind when the phone rang a second time and one of CUNA's newest employees, sitting before cameras set up by public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to record events for CUNA's future campaign use, picked it up.
"I was on camera when I got the news," said Richard. "It was an exercise in composure and one of the biggest challenges of my career."
The news came from CUNA staffer Brenda Furlow, who had personally traveled to Capitol Hill to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld the decision made by the D.C. Circuit Court's ruling on First National Bank & Trust Co. et al vs. NCUA, the case originally filed in the early 1990s protesting the regulator's authorization of AT&T Family Federal Credit Union (now Truliant Credit Union) to expand to a community charter. Loss of the suit would mean hundreds of credit unions would have to expel potentially millions of members. It was Richard's job to share the dark cloud with the GAC's closing-day crowd.
"I don't think anything in law school ever prepared me for this," Richard said.
Richard gave a stunned audience the news, toppling them from the previous day's high.
CUNA Chairman E.E. "Buck" Levins, former president of Warner-Robins Federal Credit Union (now Robins Federal Credit Union) in Warner-Robins, Ga., gave an impassioned speech designed to incite the crowd to action. "Buck told them that they knew what they had to do, and they did it," said Richard.
What GAC attendees did was escalate the efforts to pass H.R. 1151 with a new vigor, working long after the close of the 1998 GAC to promote passage of legislation that would render the Supreme Court decision moot. The bill had already been introduced and supported by Gingrich, but a new dynamic on the Hill, combined with credit union efforts on the ground, brought about change in record time.
The President Signs
"It can take years to get a bill passed, but it took just eight months to reverse the Supreme Court's decision," observed Richard.
The bill passed in the House of Representatives on April 2, 1998, with the Senate casting its vote overwhelmingly in favor of the bill on July 28 of that year. On August 7, then President Bill Clinton signed H.R. 1151 into law, marking a major victory for credit unions and the members they serve.
