Washington, D.C. – Congressman Ellison (D-Minneapolis) voted in favor of H.R. 3639, the Expedited CARD Reform for Consumers Act of 2009. This legislation, which passed the House today, means that previously passed credit card consumer protections take effect immediately upon becoming law.

Earlier this year, Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass comprehensive credit card reform legislation that was subsequently signed into law by President Obama. The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD), designed to stop anti-consumer practices by some credit card companies, was going to start in February, 2010. Representative Ellison was an original cosponsor and author of a portion of the bill. Anticipating these changes, some major credit card companies began using the time before the law was implemented to raise the interest rates for millions of cardholders arbitrarily – the very behavior the legislation prohibits.

“Unfortunately, some credit card companies have abused the time that was given them to convert their computer software to meet the requirements of the law, to make last-minute rate hikes to bilk consumers of as much as they can before the law we passed kicks into gear,” Ellison stated.

“This is, plain and simple, consumer gouging on the part of credit card companies at its worst,” Ellison stated. “We gave the card companies a good faith grace period before the enacted reforms came into play – and they took the consumers and small businesses to the cleaners.”

“The passage of H.R. 3639, the Expedited CARD Reform for Consumers Act of 2009 puts an end to these practices that take hard-earned money from Minnesota families,” the 5th District Congressman said.