August 13, 2018

 

To the Honorable Members of

The Illinois House of Representatives,

100^th General Assembly:

 

Today, I return House Bill 4710 with specific recommendations for change that will improve the productivity of the proposed College Student Credit Card Marketing and Debt Task Force tasked with garnering relevant college student credit card debt information.

 

Student credit card debt is an issue of great importance to our young adult population and deserves further attention by a body that can examine its root causes and effects. However, I am concerned that the Task Force proposed by this legislation is ill-suited to properly study student credit card debt and debt in general. 

 

The legislation as presented will set the Task Force up for failure instead of empowering it as it looks into this important issue. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has limited authority over most major credit card issuers, and these entities may refuse to turn over information to an Illinois task force. Furthermore, even within Illinois financial institutions, the proprietary nature of credit card information limits the accessibility of the information.  Mandating the contours of the Task Force’s inquiry to the current level of specificity could lead the group’s report to be partial or inconclusive.  Illinois should not proceed with a Task Force that will likely both produce an incomplete study and be burdensome on the participants’ and the Department’s time and resources.

 

Instead, Illinois should proceed with a Task Force that provides the flexibility and expertise to scrutinize appropriate informational sources that can contribute to better understand what can be done to mitigate the accumulation of student credit card and student debt in general. 

 

The following changes are needed to promote productivity and usefulness of information gathered by the Task Force. The first change will add a representative of a credit card issuer to the Task Force. The second change provides the Task Force with the latitude to select which factors provide the most useful information for the study, including the addition of categories related to the Credit Card Marketing Act of 2009, college credit card agreements and the consumer credit card market.  Finally, this amendment will adopt a more realistic timeline for filing its report with the Illinois General Assembly on this laudable issue.

 

Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(e) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return House Bill 4710, entitled “AN ACT concerning education,” with the following recommendation for change:

 

On page 1, by inserting immediately after line 22 the following:

“(4) there is value to the citizens of Illinois in investigating the availability and accessibility of information provided by credit card issuers to better understand factors in the accumulation of student credit card debt and factors mitigating the amount of credit card debt a student faces after graduating.”; and

 

On page 2, by replacing line 26 with “designee;”

 

On page 3, by replacing line 3 with: “designee; and”

 

On page 3, by inserting immediately after line 3 : “(9) a representative of a credit card issuer.”; and

 

On page 3, by replacing lines 18 and 19 with: “(e) The Task Force shall conduct a study that may examine any of the following factors as determined to be necessary and available by the Task Force:”; and

 

On page 5, by inserting immediately after line 13 the following:

 

“(15) Agreements between credit card issuers and higher education institutions or organizations affiliated with the institutions, including, but not limited to, trends, the number of credit card accounts covered by the agreement, the number of new accounts opened by year end under the agreement, the number of payments made by the issuer to the institution or organization during the year, and any Memorandum of Understanding between the issuer and institution or affiliated organization that directly or indirectly relates to any aspect of the agreement.

(16) Evaluation of the effectiveness of the Credit Card Marketing Act of 2009.

(17) Other state actions taken to address the marketing of credit cards to students and the accumulation of student credit card debt.

(18) Other factors the Task Force deems relevant regarding student credit card debt within the consumer credit card market.”; and

 

On page 5, by replacing line 20 with: “14, 2019, at which time the Task Force shall be dissolved. This”; and

 

On page 5, by replacing line 25 with: “(g) This Section is repealed on January 1, 2020.”

 

With these changes, House Bill 4710 will have my approval. I respectfully request your concurrence.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

 

Bruce Rauner

GOVERNOR