WASHINGTON - Two years later, one of its biggest political expenditures paid off for CUNA with the introduction in the Senate of the CU Regulatory Improvements Act, better known as CURIA, by Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
For Lieberman, whose 2006 reelection was threatened by his pro-war stance, was the recipient of the largest independent expenditure ever undertaken by CUNA on behalf of a congressional candidate, as the credit union trade association spent almost $250,000 to blanket Lieberman’s home state of Connecticut with advocacy literature in the days before he lost the Democratic primary, then just before the general election when he won the race as an independent candidate.
The boost by CUNA was so unusual that Lieberman did not even know of it until after the race was over because of Federal Election Commission rules governing so-called independent campaign expenditures.
Several non-CUNA credit union lobbyists wondered at the time why CUNA was making the effort on behalf of Lieberman, who had little record of support on credit union issues.
But last week the move at last paid off for CUNA when Lieberman capped a five-year effort to get CURIA introduced in the Senate.
However, at the end of last week, Lieberman was still the only senator to sign on to the bill, signaling a lack of support in the Senate. Even Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu, who pledged to co-sponsor CURIA on March 4 at CUNA’s government affairs conference earlier this year, has yet to add her name to the bill as a co-sponsor in the senate.
