Congressman-turned-lobbyist, Jim Matheson represents payday lenders, energy company
Now free to chat up his former congressional colleagues, Jim Matheson, the conservative Utah Democratic congressman-turned-lobbyist, has signed a slate of clients in recent weeks that includes Salt Lake Community College, a major energy company and a group of payday lenders worried about new federal rules.
Matheson joined Squires Patton Boggs, a big bipartisan lobbying firm, in January 2015, just a few weeks after he stepped away from his 14-year career in the U.S. House. By law, he was barred from lobbying lawmakers or their staffs for one year. It's a "cooling-off period" that he says has some merit. But since the beginning of 2016, Matheson has cobbled together a diverse group of clients, none more controversial than the one he signed April 1, the Ad Hoc Coalition for Fair Access to Credit.
The coalition comprises four payday lenders - none based in Utah - that have hired Matheson, along with former Georgia Republican Rep. Jack Kingston, to track the actions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The bureau, formed in 2011 in reaction to the Great Recession, promises to release new rules governing the short-term, high-interest loans later this year, with the stated goal of ensuring the public isn't preyed upon.
Matheson said his job is to point out to regulators that the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, which created the bureau and which Matheson voted for in the House, not only sets up a process to regulate payday lenders, but also requires "maintaining consumer access to capital."
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