The industry's fervent interchange blitz to kill the Durbin amendment continued to build momentum Wednesday with CUNA projecting its membership will have conducted 100,000 electronic and verbal contacts with lawmakers by day's end.
CUNA and NAFCU were soliciting a flood of e-mails, phone calls, branch petitions from members, employees and volunteers to contact key Congressmen to defeat the amendment when it reaches a Senate/House conference perhaps next week.
State leagues were also making hurry-up arrangements, hiring buses and booking Washington hotel rooms for an impromptu CUNA-sponsored June 8-10 Hike the Hill rally to bring more pressure on lawmakers.
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Considering the short notice, schedules were being juggled and so it was uncertain how many CEOs and top managers might show up for next week's rally, which also has the backing of banking trade groups including the Independent Community Bankers of America.
"I'd love to go but I have to be here for our annual meeting next week but I know our government relations staff is working on scheduling a visit with Sen. Johnson," said Doug Thompson, president/CEO of Aberdeen FCU in South Dakota and chairman of the Mid America Credit Union Association. Tim Johnson, a Democrat, is a member of the House-Senate conference dealing with the Durbin amendment.
Apart from the e-mail campaign, the New Mexico Credit Union Association, meeting this week in Santa Fe, said it will have a "Little Guy" cutout and computer booth in a hotel lobby "to sign up convention and hotel guests asking they contact lawmakers."
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