For Immediate Release: March 27, 2025

Contact: Brian Johns
bjohns@virginia-organizing.org
276-619-1920

Virginia’s Members of Congress will soon cast deciding votes in House of Representatives

Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine voted to lower overdraft fees on the state’s families, setting up a tough vote for Members of Congress on whether to do the same in the House of Representatives. 

Congress has joined the administration’s attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by launching a series of efforts to roll back rules, including the one lowering overdraft fees to $5. Virginia’s 11 Members of Congress  will be making critical votes to block or pass this measure when the House of Representatives takes up similar legislation in the coming weeks.

“Senators Kaine and Warner voted to stop big banks from picking Virginians’ pockets by jacking up junk fees,” said Brian Johns, Virginia Organizing. “Our Representatives should reject this assault on working families’ budgets and stand with the people trying to make ends meet, not with big banks protecting their profits.”

The CFPB last year finalized new caps on overdraft fees at big banks, which would lower the costs from an average of $35 to $5, saving families $5 billion per year. The banking industry has long fought efforts to even disclose what banks make off overdrafts and has pushed Congress to nullify the new caps. The measure, which only applies to banks with assets above $10 billion, closes a longstanding loophole in federal rules that let banks turn these fees into a profit center by charging far in excess of what overdrafts cost the bank.

“Lawmakers who vote to roll back the CFPB’s new caps on overdraft fees are throwing their constituents under the bus for the sake of higher profits at big banks,” said Kimberly Fountain, consumer financial justice manager at Americans for Financial Reform. “The Senate may have spoken, but the House should reject this effort by Wall Street banks to hike overdraft fees on their constituents. Members should vote against these awful junk fees.”

Virginia Organizing, Americans for Financial Reform and nearly 300 organizations across the country, including Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, Virginia Poverty Law Center, and Legal Aid Works, wrote lawmakers opposing this attempt to repeal the CFPB overdraft rule.

Virginia Organizing is a non-partisan statewide grassroots organization that brings people together to create a more just Virginia.