Durbin-Marshall swipe fee bill could get a vote this Congress

WASHINGTON — The credit card swipe fee bill that banks strongly oppose won’t be included for a vote in this year’s defense spending bill, but it could come up again in the near future. 

Banking groups last week said they were concerned that a bill sponsored by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, would be included in the National Defense Authorization Act, although most policy watchers on the Hill said it was unlikely. Durbin, the bill’s main legislative champion, has also been gone from the Senate floor this week, further setting back the bill’s chances of being included in the defense spending package. 

Marshall, the bill’s other main sponsor on the Republican side, has tried to get the bill included, but has had little success lobbying Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., without his Democrat counterpart. The bill won’t be included in the NDAA, but Marshall has been told that it will be up for a vote soon, said a person familiar with the matter. 

In a statement, Marshall said that he has “received assurances” that the vote will occur this Congress. 

“We need to do all we can to drive down costs, and our legislation will do just that,” he said in a statement. “We are looking forward to getting this bipartisan bill passed together in the near future. Today, we were given assurances that the Credit Card Competition Act will be given a vote this Congress.”  

There are still two must-pass pieces of legislation this year: The Farm Bill and the big government spending package. There would likely be questions about the bill’s relevance to the Farm Bill, and it’s expected that this year’s spending package will continue to prompt partisan fighting and opposition from the Republican Party’s most conservative wing. 

The bill could also be attached to the executive compensation package that the Senate Banking Committee passed and sent to the full Senate in the aftermath of the regional banking crisis earlier this year. 

While Durbin has pushed for this bill in the past, this year he’s found a number of Republican co-sponsors, such as Marshall, whose support makes the legislation a lot more likely to pass. The bill would require cards from banks with $100 billion or more of assets to offer merchants the choice of two unaffiliated card networks that aren’t Visa and Mastercard.