MAJOR MILESTONE IN CAREER
As Chair of NAFCU at the time, I saw the battle of the AT&T Family FCU case as a wake-up call for credit unions. I am proud to say we answered with a swift, strategic plan of action to get H.R. 1151 passed. While running a dual track in the courts to overcome banker attacks, the trade groups also marshaled forces to create a tidal wave of momentum that helped us achieve an unequivocal victory in the passage of H.R. 1151.
Getting legislation passed is a bit like sausage making. It is made up of many different ingredients that hopefully prove palatable to most. Such was the case with H.R. 1151. While it proved an overall triumph for us, the bankers still got their pound of flesh through the inclusion of the member business lending limit.
H.R. 1151 also proved to be a great opportunity for NCUA. It clarified field of membership issues and enabled NCUA to be more innovative in defining member groups.
Looking ahead, credit union challenges will continue, but our solid membership base and grassroots power offer a bedrock of strength that is hard to beat. The will of the credit union community and consumers everywhere is alive and well and will ensure victory in the ongoing war with the banking community.
James A. Guretzky
1997-1999 NAFCU Chair
President/CEO of SAC Federal Credit Union-1984-2007
MR. SMITH’S CU GOES TO WASH.
I was the director of marketing at the time for Xerox FCU, and I remember our CEO, Kevin Foster-Keddie, coming into my office and explaining what the AT&T Family Federal Credit Union lawsuit was all about. Although I was new to credit unions, having come from Washington lobbying for a financial institute, I remember feeling so angry about one business trying to stifle another businesses efforts to serve their market. It felt so anti-consumer to me.
I poured through my financial dictionary and found some great support in the Antitrust laws. I remember writing up some long, probably lofty, e-mail about how it was illegal, via Antitrust legislation. to block markets for consumers. Even if existing laws narrowly defined a credit union charter, they were unfairly limiting the ability of those credit unions to adapt to change. And so on!
Kevin was part of that first task force that came up with the Campaign for Consumer Choice, and I always hoped in the back of my mind that my e-mail had given Kevin some talking points that resonated with the group and became part of that creative process. Then, while I was at Hughes Aircraft Employees FCU (now Kinecta) as VP Marketing, we did several campaigns to collect letters from members supporting the Campaign for Consumer Choice, and it felt like “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”dumping out all those letters into boxes for our senators and legislative representatives.
Although it’s been a slow march, I do think credit unions have made a significant market impact since then and have taken advantage of everything HR 1151 providesto the benefit of the consumer. But those sure were exciting times back when we worked so hard to make it happen!
Kristin Witzenburg, Publisher
Money Matters Magazine, Torrance, Calif.
VIEW INSIDE THE FIRESTORM
I was CEO of what was then AT&T Family FCU (now Truliant FCU) at the time, we found ourselves in the middle of a firestorm that threatened our members’ ability to choose their credit union as financial services provider.
I did the circuit of TV and radio where the order of the day was to try to pit a banker trade representative against the credit union representative. I remember debating an official with the ABA on CNBC live on one occasion. I reported to a studio in Charlotte and was sitting on a wobbly chair up on a platform hearing my own comments echo in my ear while trying to respond to the standard attacks on taxation, CRA, unfair playing field etc. I realized that my opponent was a member of the credit union where I had served as CEO previously. Not wanting to take advantage of our relationship, I carefully crafted my points to imply that many Americans understood the advantage of a credit union and that the choice to join should be extended to working families. It was reassuring when he softened his approach and actually complemented AT&T Family FCU while still trying to maintain the ABA “party line.”
Marcus Schaefer, CEO
Truliant CU, Winston-Salem, N.C.
RECALLING THE HOT DOG VENDOR
One of my favorite memories during the campaign for HR 1151 was when the bankers ran a full page ad in the New York Times featuring a hot dog vendor. The headline was the guy saying, “I’ll pay more in taxes than the credit union industry.”
Of course this guy in their ad wasn’t a real hot dog vendor, just some model. So we hit the phones and in 72 hours we had our own ad. Except in ours we had a real hot dog vendor, Wendall Sisler. He’d been laid off and couldn’t get a loan from a bank, so he went to his credit union. They gave him a loan to get his business going, without having to put up his house as collateral. His quote in the ad summed it up: “I repaid my start-up loan. But I can never really repay my credit union for believing in me.”
Our use of real people telling the CU difference contrasted dramatically with a slick banker ad using stock actor photos. The ad ran in the Washington Times and in several congressional “Hill” papers. We knocked the bankers back on their heels. It was a classic credit union victory in the middle of the war of words
Buddy Gill, Texas Credit Union League
Farmers Branch, Texas
THE TIRED, HUNGRY BUS PEOPLE
I remember these events very vividly. My fondest memory is meeting folks from Illinois as they got off buses tired and hungry in D.C. We fed them a hot breakfast at 5:30 a.m. They borrowed rooms from those of us who were staying at the hotel, showered, changed clothes and enthusiastically went to the rally at the Mall. They boarded the buses and headed back to Illinois. We still refer to them as the “bus people.” To me that was a true representation of what people did by working together. Hopefully, this solidarity will be a part of our future vision.
Dan Plauda, President
Illinois CU League, Naperville
FEEL DEFEATED, JUMP FOR JOY
The most defeated I felt was when the Supreme Court ruled against credit unions. We all knew it could happen, but we were shocked that it did. Serving as the marketing director for a multi-SEG credit union during that time, I spent 70% or more of our marketing budget on educating members about the fight.
Members responded by signing petitions and writing letters. I remember the day that CUNA asked for everyone to call their members of Congress, we were on a mission. We had members on phones in our lobbies. Management made calls to all of our schools and companies asking for them to call. When we heard the news that the switchboard had shutdown, we jumped for joy. That was a victory that really gave us the energy to go on and that our fight wasn’t lost.
It was a time of long nights and hard work but it made our credit union focus on what credit unions are and how we served our memberswhat a novel idea!
Kerri J. Smith, CEO, CU Exceed, Simpsonville, S.C.
DON’T WANT ’EM ANGRY
We at Municipal Credit Union visited our members of Congress both in Washington and in their District offices and had received assurances that the representatives supported HR 1151. On July 14 1998, a hot Tuesday as I recall, there was a rally on the west side of the Capitol building. The rally was a challenge from members of the Senate who didn’t think credit unions could get people into D.C. on a week’s notice. I heard New York Sen. Al D’Amato say to his fellow senators, “You don’t want to get these people angry.” As I remember about 1,500 people showed up and they were from every state. And I was docked a day’s pay for not showing up at work.
Richard Wagner,
Municipal Credit Union, New York City
DIFFICULT DAY FOR A HEARING
The day of my Senate confirmation hearing (for the NCUA board) was the same day the AT&T Family case was being heard in the U.S. Supreme Court. Then, the adverse Supreme Court decision came down on the day I gave my inaugural presentation to the CUNA GAC as a new member of the NCUA Board. So I guess you could say I was on the front lines of the HR 1151 battle from my first official days in Washington. It was a tremendous challenge and opportunity to be in the trenches for the legislative battle in support of HR 1151.
As a regulator representing NCUA, our role was as a supportive resource to the industry’s advocacy efforts. I can remember hundreds of visits with senators, congressmen and their staffs trying to help them understand that, if credit unions cannot grow and diversify, they cannot survive. I think the moment that told me credit unions had the momentum on our side was when I ran into a key senator at a social function in the Majority Leader’s office that he had never seen a grassroots campaign as effective as the one the credit unions were carrying out on HR 1151. His words, knowing his past position on some credit union issues, said it all that evening when he told me it “Looks like even I’m going to have to support the damn bill.”
Dennis Dollar, Former NCUA Chairman
Principal Partner Dollar Associates, Birmingham, Ala.
HAVING VOTES VS. HAVING FOLKS
I remember visiting our legislators as part of the Wisconsin delegation during the 1998 GAC and one of them telling me “looks like banks have the money, but credit unions have the people.” I knew at that point victory was ours.
John Vardallas, CU Speaker/Consultant
Madison, Wis.
THE BEST EXAMPLE OF GRASSROOTS
Arriving at NCUA headquarters in the fall of 1997 as Executive Assistant to newly appointed NCUA Board Member Dennis Dollar, I was met with a myriad of issues I needed to get up to speed on. While the next seven years would find the NCUA Board dealing with a multitude of interesting and pressing issues affecting the nations federally insured credit unions, it was the battle for and ultimately the successful passage of HR 1151 in 1998 that most defined the movement for generations to come.
As I reflect on the fight for HR 1151, the efforts of many dedicated individuals come to mind, but I am most impressed by how an entire industry came together regardless of charter type to fight for the future of credit unions. From the march on the U.S. Capitol to the relentless letter-writing campaign that was waged in the halls of Congress, no stone was left unturned.
In fact, I recall being contacted by the office of a prominent member of Congress complaining about the number of faxes and e-mails they were receiving from credit unions on HR 1151. As we talked about the bill, the staffer told me that in all of his years in Washington he had never seen a better example of grass roots politics. It was at that precise moment I knew we were going to win the fight.
Kirk Cuevas, Principal Partner
Former NCUA Chief of Staff to Chairman Dennis Dollar
Dollar Associates, Birmingham, Ala.
A LESSON IS LEARNED
At the time, I was a newbie to the credit union movement and the idea of grassroots mobilization was new to me, too.
We were encouraged to write our congressmen, which was something I had never done before. When we learned it had passed, it was exciting to feel that the efforts of so many individuals could make such a difference.
Stephanie Wessman Lemmon
Iowa
WHEN WE LEARNED WE NEEDED A BIGGER BOAT’
The big-picture, front-page news happenings are well known and need no recounting by me. I prefer to recall the small occurrences, vignettes that tell the story most vividly.
Early on, I remember Gary Kohn and I wandering around the Hill in December 1996. We visited key congressional staff on the eve of a new Congress being seated, looking to get a bill introduced and passed early the next year. Those sessions with some of the strongest credit union friends in Congress yielded extremely sobering and disappointing results, with each meeting resulting in us being told that help was not forthcoming any time soon. I turned to Gary during the elevator ride that ended our day, and in my best imitation of Sheriff Brody, Roy Scheider’s character in “Jaws,” said “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” And so we did.
That boat turned out to be an extraordinary amount of grassroots CU support for H.R. 1151. The legislation picked up both a significant number of co-sponsors and a significant number of detractors, on Capitol Hill and in the so-called “K Street” community, all of whom thought that the big money, all-powerful banking lobby would prevail against these upstart credit unions.
One incident illustrates the conventional wisdom from that time. I had hired a young woman from a congressional office, a very enthusiastic and well-known Hill staffer, who came into my office about a month into her CUNA career, looking more than mildly upset. She had been at a Capitol Hill reception, and was besieged by a group of bank lobbyists, all telling her how badly credit unions were going to be beaten. To make matters worse, they continued, she had ruined any hope of a career in Washington by throwing in with the credit unionsshe would forever wear a scarlett letter thanks to the obvious miscalculation of going to work for CUNA.
As luck would have it, she and I were walking across the Capitol parking lot shortly after the final 411-8 vote for passage of the House bill, and we spied one of the naysayers. My exuberent colleague waved at her former tormenter and said something like “thanks for the career advice.”
The bank lobbyist’s response consisted of a single finger.
Finally, I also remember sitting in the “war room” set up at a Capitol Hill hotel on the day that the Senate voted, alone except for one or two league and credit union activists. It was eerily quiet, the vote had been won, and our happiness mixed with fatigue. A crew of hotel workers entered the room carrying signs and materials for some other trade association that was going to be using the room for a meeting the next day. It dawned on me that, even though our campaign had drawn to a close, the world of Washington politics had already moved on to the next battles, involving the doctors or the truckers or any one of the thousands of groups lobbying Congress.
No rest for the weary. Ten years later that still holds true.
John McKechnie, formerly with CUNA
NCUA, Alexandria, Va. (c) 2008 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.cujournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com
