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The U.S. House of Representatives is slated to vote tomorrow on the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights, and its sponsor, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D.-N.Y., is hopeful the bill will sail through without major changes or amendments. "In the midst of the financial turmoil on Wall Street, tomorrow will be an opportunity for the House to do something for Main Street," Maloney said in a statement released today. The House Financial Services Committee in July approved the bill, which would prohibit card issuers from changing interest rates on existing card balances except when payments are at least 30 days late. It also would require issuers to apply payments to balances with the highest interest rates first and would extend the bill-payment cycle to 25 days from the current minimum of 14 days (CardLine, 8/1). Linda Sherry, director of national priorities at San Francisco-based Consumer Action, tells CardLine that, although the Senate is unlikely to take up the bill in this year's congressional session because of a lack of time, House passage this month would be an important step toward credit card legislation. "With extraordinary efforts, this bill could go through this year, but it is unlikely," she says. "Passage of the bill would be more of a strong message sent to the Federal Reserve to act in the best way possible to protect consumers with its proposed new rules for card issuers. We hear the Fed is getting a lot of pushback from banks on that effort." The Fed says it remains on track to finish its own proposed rules for card issuers, which closely parallel those in Maloney's bill, before the end of the year (CardLine, 9/10).
