Two national legislators from the ºüÀêÊÓƵ area have signed their names to compositions about credit cards and evictions:
• U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican and Missouri’s senior senator, to the Department of Justice, asking it to block the planned $35.3 billion merger of Capital One and Discover Card.
Continuing his Republican-populist stance of recent months, Hawley joins progressive Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren in asking President Joe Biden’s administration to block the deal.
“This is destructive corporate consolidation at its starkest,â€Â Hawley wrote on Wednesday, saying the merger would “create a new juggernaut ... with unprecedented powers to extort American consumers.â€
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On X (nee Twitter), Hawley was more succinct, saying the merger is “another way to screw the American people.â€
Hawley is not the only Missouri lawmaker questioning the plastic partnership.
While stopping short of calling for blockage, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City, said regulators must explain how “the creation of (the) sixth largest bank in the U.S., would improve financial stability, competition or the needs of working families.â€
• On Monday, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-ºüÀêÊÓƵ, said she has to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, asking for information about the evictions of Black people, specifically Black women with children.
The letter, signed by 47 other representatives, says “grave injustices†still exist and notes that “significant racial disparities in eviction filings†exist.
“Shockingly, although Black Americans only make up 18.6% of all renters in the United States, over half (51.1%) of those affected by eviction are Black,†the letter states.
The letter asks for a response from HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge by March 18.