SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline) — California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced March 19 that he has joined a coalition of 30 attorneys general in urging the U.S. Congress to opposed a bill that would exempt student loan originators, servicers or debt collectors from state-level oversight and enforcement.
The PROSPER Act was passed by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Dec.13, 2017. It is awaiting a full vote before the U.S. House of Representatives. The coalition of attorneys general wrote a letter to congressional leaders, arguing the bill would interfere with states’ rights in policing inside their borders.
“There is a student loan debt crisis in our country exacerbated by loan servicers who play fast and loose with the rules. Now is not the time to take the cops off the beat," Becerra said in a statement. "The so-called PROSPER Act would be a boon for unscrupulous operators and a direct assault on the work achieved by California. We lead the country in enacting a licensing program for student loan servicers. The only people who will prosper from this legislation are the profiteers who care little about helping students graduate from college."
Joining Becerra in the letter are the attorneys general of New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia, as well as the executive director of the Hawaii Office of Consumer Protection.