"Protecting retailers and their customers from the greed of credit card companies is an issue that crosses party lines. Congress is hearing more and more often from their constituents that it's time to do something about a fee that gives a windfall profit to the credit card industry at a time when the average American is struggling to pay for groceries and to fill the tank. The public thinks it's time to do something about these fees, and members of Congress are responding," Duncan said.

Currently the act has a total of 37 other co-sponsors in the House, including 21 Democrats and 16 Republicans, according to the NRF.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Limits Scope of Banker Attack

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that effectively narrowed a banker legal attack on two credit union conversions to community charters in 2005.

In that year, the Pennsylvania Department of Banking approved community charter applications from Trumark Financial Credit Union and Freedom Credit Union, both of them in the greater Philadelphia area.

Banks and banking associations immediately challenged both decisions in state court, where government administrative decisions can be appealed in Pennsylvania. They did so on two broad grounds. First, a series of arguments attacked the merits of the field of membership decisions, while a second series of arguments attacked the decisions on the grounds that they violated the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The bankers' constitutional argument consisted of four parts, and when the two credit unions, joined by the Pennsylvania Credit Union Association, immediately challenged them, the Commonwealth Court sided with the credit unions, dismissing three of the four. The bankers' appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was to overturn that Commonwealth Court decision that threw out three of the four constitutional arguments.

The Supreme Court decision leaves the Commonwealth Court to both rule on the last of the constitutional arguments as well as to address the entire challenge to the Department of Banking's field of membership reasoning in the cases of the two credit unions. It narrowed the case but does not represent a final victory, a spokesman for the PCUA pointed out.

In reviewing the decision, it appears the bankers arguments suffered, in part, from their addressing only three of their four constitutional complaints.

The state supreme court said that the Commonwealth Court's order, which dismissed most but not all of the bankers' claims, was not a final order and therefore not subject to appeal to the state's highest court. It added that the parties involved in the suit can continue to pursue relief in lower courts.

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