House to look at credit unions

A controversial resolution asking the U.S. Congress to weigh in on credit union regulation and taxation issues was passed out of a Utah legislative committee Tuesday and will be debated by the state House of Representatives.

HJR1, "A Joint Resolution Related to Financial Institutions," was passed on a 10-3 vote by the House Business and Labor Standing Committee.

The resolution asks the federal government to re-examine rulings by the National Credit Union Administration regarding fields of membership for Utah's federally chartered credit unions; allow states and local governments to levy the same taxes on federally chartered credit unions as are imposed on state chartered ones; and provide the states with an explanation for maintaining the current tax structure, if it decides to do so.

On Tuesday, HJR1 sponsor Rep. Jeff Alexander, R-Provo, said the resolution is a request for guidance and feedback — which, he said, Congress has not provided.

"It appears that some of the congressmen just don't want to deal with it," Alexander said. "They may be feeling like we feel here — they don't want to get into the battle. So we're requesting that they get into the battle and make some decisions."

Howard Headlee, president of the Utah Bankers Association, argued that the resolution should be adopted so that "we can take this fight where it belongs: to Congress."

"By adopting this resolution, we are putting in writing the findings of the (Legislature's Financial Institutions) Task Force, the model we adopted in 2003 and saying we stand behind that model until further notice from Congress," Headlee said. "We're saying it is now a congressional issue, and until they come back with some clear direction, we're standing behind what we did in 2003. That's it. There's no new policy in the resolution. It will not change any laws. It will not raise any taxes."

But Lynn Kuehne, executive vice president of the Utah League of Credit Unions, said it will send a dangerous message.

"It's sending a message we don't want promulgated across the country," Kuehne said. "This is just another way of stirring the pot, of keeping this in front of the legislators, locally and federally. It fits in with their (bank advocates') long-term game plan of just picking away at little things until there's nothing left, and then it falls."

In the end, the committee split down party lines, with Republicans voting in favor of HJR1 and Democrats voting against it.