![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/gac.jpg\")
<\/a>o weeks after last year\u2019s CUNA GAC, the country began closing schools, businesses, and urging social distancing. What we did not realize was what the remainder of 2020 had in store for us. It would look very different with lobbies closed, virtual meetings replace face to face meetings, annual meetings postponed and go virtual, examinations went remote, and some of those changes appear to be here to stay for at least a while.<\/p>\nThis year\u2019s CUNA GAC went virtual for the first time ever along with virtual Hill visits with members of Congress.\u00a0 Nebraska\u2019s credit unions met virtually with Congressman Adrian Smith and Congressman Jeff Fortenberry and their staff on March 4th<\/sup>.\u00a0 \u201cAdvocacy requires adaptation and the ability to shift in changing environments.\u00a0 Virtual meetings with lawmakers and regulators is not ideal but the silver lining is that it does allow for more participation from credit union advocates that might not otherwise be able to travel for face to face meetings,\u201d said Brandon Luetkenhaus chief advocacy officer at the Nebraska Credit Union League.<\/p>\n Nebraska credit unions also meet with U.S. Senator Ben Sasse and Congressman Don Bacon on March 9th<\/sup>.\u00a0 During the virtual Hill visits, credit unions voiced their concern that the pendulum might swing back to one-size-fits-all regulation and a \u201cgotcha\u201d mentality.\u00a0 President Biden\u2019s nominee to be the new director of the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently stated that \u201cif confirmed, he would likely return the bureau to aggressively fine and penalize companies for bad behaviors.\u201d\u00a0 Advocates pointed out that credit unions by structure are protectors of their members\/owners. The CFPB and the National Credit Union Administration have both indicated that consumer protections would be a top priority of the agencies.\u00a0 The advocates also discussed the proposed minimum wage and the impact artificially raising it at the federal level could have on credit unions and especially small credit unions. They provided evidence of the impact that credit unions are having on the communities that they serve and how credit unions adapted to the health directives to ensure that they could continue to serve their members in a safe way for both the members and credit union team members.\u00a0 They urged enhancements to the credit union charter including allowing more Americans to be served by credit unions, allowing credit union boards to expel disruptive members, and allowing the NCUA to expand loan maturity limits beyond 15 years.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.7.0″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”0px|||||”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.7.0″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”3px|||||”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.7.0″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.0″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″] Two weeks after last year\u2019s CUNA GAC, the country began closing schools, businesses, and urging social distancing. What we did not realize was what the remainder of 2020 had in store for us. It would look very different with lobbies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncultheaffiliate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}