Sheldon Whitehouse: “This is an important amendment. It closes a loophole that was opened by the Supreme Court decision of 30 years ago, the…”

“This is an important amendment. It closes a loophole that was opened by the Supreme Court decision of 30 years ago, the decision to define the term ``located'' in the National Banking Act from way back in the Civil War era, 1863, as meaning the location where the bank is located, not the location where the consumer is located, so that when there is a bank in one State doing business with a consumer in another State, the laws of the bank's State govern. There is nothing particularly wrong with that decision. The problem is that the banks figured out that they could go to States that had the worst consumer protections or go to States that would be willing to chuck their consumer protections in return for the influx of business.”