AB 310: California Bill to Establish Nation’s Second Public Bank Applauded as ‘Historic Challenge to Wall Street Domination’ | Common Dreams News

UPDATE: benefits of state owned banks. Support California Bill AB 310

The Public Banking Revolution Is Upon Us | WEB OF DEBT BLOG

> Ellen Brown posted: “As public banking gains momentum across the > country, policymakers in California and Washington state are vying to > form the nation’s second state-owned bank, following in the footsteps > of the highly successful Bank of North Dakota, founded in …

California Bill to Establish Nation’s Second Public Bank Applauded as ‘Historic Challenge to Wall Street Domination’ | Common Dreams News

“If California is serious about addressing racial and income inequities, we must create a banking system that centers people not profits.”

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“Times of crisis are when change happens—to fuel California’s economic recovery, we need a bank designed to stabilize the economy and invest back into our communities,” said Trinity Tran, co-founder of the California Public Banking Alliance and Public Bank LA. (Photo: Trinity Tran/Twitter)

In a move advocacy groups celebrated as a “historic challenge to Wall Street domination of municipal finances,” a pair of California state lawmakers on Thursday unveiled legislation that would establish the nation’s second publicly-owned bank and empower the institution to lend to businesses and local governments fighting to stay afloat amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Bank on California Bill (AB 310)—introduced by Democratic Assembly members Miguel Santiago of Los Angeles and David Chiu of San Francisco—would transform the state’s Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (IBank) into a public financial institution capable of efficiently distributing desperately needed funding as schools and other crucial social services struggle to cope with the coronavirus crisis and the resulting economic fallout.

“We can structure a bank that actually is accountable to the people and does what the people want it to do.”
—Assemblymember Miguel Santiago

The bill comes less than a year after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the Public Banking Act, a measure also authored by Santiago and Chiu that allowed the state’s cities and counties to set up publicly-run banks. North Dakota is currently the only state in the U.S. with a public bank.

“We already have an IBank, and it already has the purpose to help the California economy—let’s restructure it into a state bank and take 10% of the money California already holds in its checking account and let’s help Main Street,” Santiago said during a virtual press conference Thursday.

“We can structure a bank that actually is accountable to the people and does what the people want it to do,” Santiago added. “We can help small businesses, we can reimagine what banking looks like and actually invest in affordable housing, we can look at local infrastructure like parks.”

Chiu stressed that establishing a state-run bank would dramatically reduce California’s reliance on “outside for-profit actors.”