• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A South Dakota legislative panel on Wednesday rejected further restrictions on payday loans and other short-term lending, so the bill's sponsor vowed to take the issue to the voters.
• The House Commerce and Energy Committee voted 11-2 to defeat the measure, with some committee members saying supporters should continue negotiating with industry representatives to find a compromise.
• But the legislation's main sponsor, Rep. Steve Hickey, said industry representatives helped write the measure after they became alarmed last year by his effort to put a proposed law on a statewide ballot to cap interest rates for short-term loans. Those same industry officials opposed the bill in Wednesday's hearing, so Hickey said he will start a new effort to put an interest cap on the 2016 ballot.
• "I keep my word. I'm going to the ballot," the Sioux Falls Republican said after the hearing. "This is all a game. Those people expressly told me to put this stuff in the bill and now they are opposing it."
• Hickey said such loans are designed to be renewed, or flipped, multiple times to trap borrowers.
• "I believe it's exploiting the poor and the elderly and those on the economic fringes of our society," Hickey said.
• The bill rejected by the committee would not have limited interest rates for short-term payday loans, title loans or signature loans. Instead, it would have imposed additional state regulations and limited the size of loans based on a borrower's ability to repay.
• Current law puts a limit of $500 on a short-term loan or the total balances of all loans made by a lender to a customer. Hickey's bill would have changed that to $700, but the loan or a borrower's monthly payments could not have exceeded 25

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