Oscar Perry Abello talks with Sylvia Chi and Kurtis Wu from the California Public Banking Alliance. YES! Magazine takes a deep dive into the Bank of North Dakota, the only state-owned bank in the nation and explores how public funds can be redirected to empower local communities.

The little city of Hazen, North Dakota, population 2,300, is the kind of town where farming and ranching families often have a second income from a job at a power plant or a coal mine.

As a teenager, Christie Obenauer, née Huber, frequently made the hourlong drive from Hazen to Bismarck, the state capital, to go shopping with her sister. On the way, they’d usually make a stop to run an errand for their dad, who ran Union State Bank of Hazen.

“We would back up that giant Buick to the back of the old Bank of North Dakota building, they loaded it up with money, and we’d cover it up with a blanket, close the trunk, go to the mall, and come home,” Obenauer says. “That was a different time. Everyone just knew we were the Huber girls.”

Obenauer is the fourth generation in her family to run Union State Bank. Founded in 1908, the bank today holds $130 million in deposits and has $147 million in loans, investments, and other assets. Obenauer still sends her staff on regular trips to pick up coin and currency in Bismarck—just don’t ask her what car they drive.

Though it’s a tiny institution in a tiny city, Union State is able to do many things normally beyond the reach of a bank of its size. It served as the lead local lender for a $30.5 million medical center that opened in 2016, combining state and federal loans, another federal loan guarantee, and cash from the regional health system. Obenauer describes how her bank partnered with the medical center, Basin Electric, and a few other local employers to convert a former church into a cooperatively owned child care center that now serves 88 kids. She also notes that her bank helped finance manufactured housing for new workers attracted by the shale oil boom. The Bank of North Dakota was an instrumental secondary market to buy those mortgages, taking up the long-term risk in the way Fannie Mae helps local lenders across the country.

While there is certainly a lot that’s unique about Hazen, Union State Bank, and Obenauer’s path to becoming a fourth-generation community banker, it is not unusual in North Dakota to find a little bank punching far above its weight. That’s just how banking works in this state, largely because of the century-old Bank of North Dakota, the only state-owned bank in the country.

All of North Dakota’s state tax and fee revenues get deposited by default into the Bank of North Dakota. Prohibited by law from competing with the private sector, it has no branches or ATMs, and other than student loans, the bank rarely originates or services loans directly to people or businesses. If you want to open an account and deposit your own money into the bank, you have to go in person to the main office in Bismarck, and you also have to be a North Dakota resident.

The Bank of North Dakota operates primarily as a bankers’ bank, partnering with local financial institutions to leverage the state’s deposits in ways designed to strengthen local banks and credit unions.

Continue reading in Yes Magazine.

SF Bay View – January 17, 2020. About 500 people gathered in the Pauley Ballroom on the University of California-Berkeley’s campus for the second annual meeting of the California Progressive Alliance (CPA) on Jan. 12. Trinity Tran of the California Public Banking Alliance spoke to Diana Cabcabin:

“Public banking is an idea that we introduced into the California State Legislature in 2019. It took a considerable amount of work to build political capital behind this bill and move the public banking conversation into the political mainstream. We are not the first organization to pass a state public banking bill [AB 857], but what we accomplished was extraordinary.

“This was a high profile and controversial bill facing heavy opposition from nine big financial firms but, without any corporate funding, we coordinated strategy with activists and supporters from across the state and got it passed. We built an endorsement list of 200 statewide regional and community organizations, including national organizations like Our Revolution and national figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders, who backs this bill.”

Continue reading on SF Bay View.

The editorial staff gathered 19 of the year’s best ideas into their Solutions of the Year print magazine. Rounding out the top 19 solutions is the California Public Banking Alliance’s AB 857 Public Banking Act!

Oscar Perry Abello reports on California’s adoption of Assembly Bill 857, which creates a legal pathway for public banks owned by city and county governments. Proponents envision a network of public banks that will leverage local public deposits in support of policy priorities such as affordable housing, clean energy, small business lending and alternatives to payday loans. “Part of why our message resonated with so many … was because everyone understands intuitively that Wall Street is extractive, is predatory,” says Trinity Tran, the California Public Banking Alliance’s lead organizer on the bill. “Why are we using our tax dollars to harm communities when we could use it to help our communities?” 

This 80-page special issue highlights the programs, people, and projects that are making cities more equitable and sustainable. Continue reading at Next City.

fter years of claiming to be a leader in climate action, California might be finally starting to step into its promised role — and it is bringing a secret weapon to the challenge.

On November 19, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the state was placing a moratorium on new permits for oil drilling activities that involved steam injection and fracking. The announcement came just a few months after news broke that not only did California’s top oil regulators have a vested interest in major oil companies, but since Newsom became governor, the number of oil permits had doubled.

“Governor Newsom has shown the world today that the future of climate leadership means saying ‘no’ to the fossil fuel industry’s dreams of endless expansion,” said Stephen Kretzmann, head of Oil Change International, one of the organizations behind the Keep It in the Ground movement. “While there is still a long road ahead, the measures announced today are important steps towards comprehensive action to phase out California’s oil and gas production and align its economy with climate safety,” he added.

Governor Newsom agrees there is a long road ahead. In his press release, he explicitly mentioned that the moratorium was undertaken with California’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045 in mind, and the subsequent need to manage the decline of oil production and consumption in the state — all while ensuring that the transition protects California’s people, environment and economy.

As in many climate discussions, the promises of balancing economic goals with the winding down of fossil fuel production and the ramping up of new infrastructure are often received with skepticism and raised eyebrows. Soon, climate action numbers in the scale of trillions are thrown into the debate in an attempt to align climate ambition with “achievable” solutions. But fortunately, California can bypass this misguided set of choices. Enter the state’s secret weapon: public banks.

Largely unnoticed in the environmental sphere, Newsom also made headlines last month when he passed the Public Banking Act. The act, the first of its kind in the country, legalized the creation of public banks across the state’s cities and counties. Public banks, financial institutions that are owned and accountable to their people through their representative government, are often praised for their investments in much-needed projects and businesses in their localities. Supported projects typically include affordable housing initiatives and small business development.

Continue reading on Truthout.

Thank you American Postal Workers Union (APWU) for your support on the Public Banking Act. Postal banks and municipal public banks are complimentary efforts and we look forward to continuing our work on the financial revolution to build a banking system that works for all working people.

APWU represents 330,000 members, employees and retirees of the United States Postal Service. 

(This article first appeared in the November/December 2019 issue of the American Postal Worker magazine) ​

The early 20th century Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined a phrase when he referred to the states as “laboratories of democracy.” Brandeis noted in his opinion that a state “may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

California has just started a new experiment in freedom from the big Wall Street banks with the passage of AB-857 into law. The bill, signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom (D) in September, will allow cities and counties across California to establish public banks. The new law makes way for California to become only the second state in the country – after North Dakota – to establish public banking.

A grassroots organization called The California Public Banking Alliance was the driving force behind AB-857’s passage, building on the momentum of a narrowly defeated ballot measure in Los Angeles that would have led to a city-owned and operated bank. The Alliance expanded the ballot measure to cities and counties across the state.

The work to pass public banking brought together city and county councils, labor unions, civil rights organizations and banking reform advocates. AB-857 supporters included the California Labor Federation; the cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego; the National American Postal Workers Union; and the California State APWU.

Continue reading on APWU.org.

November 5, 2019. Glenn Daigon with Who.What.Why talks with Assemblymember David Chiu and the Alliance’s Trinity Tran. From successful legislating to overcoming the clout of big finance, California’s new public banking law is reverberating across the country.

For only the second time in 100 years, a people-powered coalition overcame the stiff opposition of the banking lobby to successfully pass a law that legalizes public banking. Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed a bill into law last month allowing California cities and towns to establish public banks.

Continue reading on Who.What.Why.

FAIR’s Janine Jackson interviews Trinity Tran on AB 857.

The October 2 Fresno Bee reported that California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law allowing cities in California to start their own public banks, to make it easier to fund projects in the public interest. Atypically for such a story, the Bee led with opponents’ argument that “such ventures are risky and impractical,” before offering supporters’ successful view, and a statement from the bill’s author, which the story then undercut with the reporter’s claim that “analyses” determined public banks “could reduce state tax revenue.” Followed by a statement from the California Bankers Association that public banks could “harm local banks,” put taxpayer dollars at risk, and “aren’t always in the best interest of the public.” Before closing with the words of the head of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that the commercial banking industry already provides any services public banks could, and “government tends to mess up most of the things it touches.”

While that story was almost humorously negative, don’t expect a lot of corporate media love for public banks, precisely to the extent that they represent, as David Dayen wrote recently, “a radical shift in understanding money, what it represents, and how it can work collectively.” Of course, that’s exactly why the idea, and this historic step, is so exciting. Joining us now to talk about what just happened in California is Trinity Tran. She’s the co-founder and lead organizer for Public Bank LA, and a founding member of the California Public Banking Alliance. She joins us by phone from Los Angeles. Welcome to CounterSpin, Trinity Tran.

Continue reading on FAIR.

• “How a Public Bank Could Help Free S.F’s Money From Wall Street,” by Ida Mojadad in SF Weekly, October 16, 2019
• “California Just Legalized Public Banks But Can They Work?,” by Mario Koran, October 15, 2019
• “Trinity Tran on Public Banking,” on FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), October 11, 2019
• “California Governor Signs Bill Allowing the Establishment of Public Banks,” by Marivic Cabural Summers in USA Herald, October 4, 2019
• “A Century in the Making,” by David Dayen in The American Prospect, October 4, 2019
• “Governor Signs Bill to Bring Public Banking to CA,” by Suzanne Potter, Public News Service (also available in audio), October 4, 2019
• “California Just Legalized Public Banking, Setting the Stage for More Affordable Housing,” by Mario Koran in The Guardian, October 4, 2019
• “California Becomes Second State to Allow Public Banks,” Sushil Jacob, Joel Fox, and Dean Baker on KQED News Forum, hosted by Mina Kim, October 4, 2019
• “‘Stunning rebuke to predatory Wall Street megabanks’ as California Gov. Newsom signs law allowing creation of public banks,” by Jake Johnson (Common Dreams) at Raw Story, October 3, 2019
• “California Just Legalized Public Banks: Will the Rest of the Nation Follow Suit?” by Ananya Garg in yes! Magazine, October 3, 2019
• “Despite complications and costs, SF to push ahead on public bank in wake of new state bill,” Dominic Fracassa in the San Francisco Chronicle, October 3, 2019
• “California Local Governments Gain a Pathway to Establish Public Banks,” by Bill Lucia at Route Fifty, October 3, 2019
• “Public banks can be formed in California: Newsom signs new law,” by James F. Peltz in the Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2019
• “Public banking in California would help create an economy that works for everyone,” by Julian LaRosa in SF Chronicle, September 30, 2019

CPBA organizer David Jette writes about our journey, the future of the movement and the transition to a equitable and sustainable economy on the path paved by public banks.

The California Senate has voted to enact AB 857, the Public Banking Act, which sets the standards and opens the door for municipal public banks throughout the state.

A second vote on the amended bill in the Assembly, which advanced it by a narrow margin last month, should follow tomorrow. If Governor Gavin Newsom signs the bill into law, California will be the first state since North Dakota in 1919 to enact a statewide public banking statute, and the first in history to define and regulate the formation of public banks under an ongoing licensing regime. And while these banks are likely to start small in cost, number, and competitive scale, these first steps toward a new horizon will hasten the dawn of a new American economy, one that is accountable to the wellbeing of the people and the planet.

Lobbyists from the California Bankers Association and their affiliated industry groups tried their best to kill this bill, and they succeeded in pressuring moderates in the legislature to water it down, by limiting the ways public banks can compete with private banks. But in the end, they failed to overcome the urgent desire of Californians to divest from banks which finance extractive and exploitative businesses, defraud their customers, and take risks that lead to trillion dollar, taxpayer funded bailouts and global economic collapse. Lawmakers recognized the need to declare independence from Wall Street and establish publicly-owned, public-purpose banks with more transparency, more accountability, and with an unshakeable commitment to local, equitable, sustainable and restorative investment.

As a hired security force hired by Dakota Access LLC descended on the protest at Standing Rock, they coordinated with state and federal authorities to provide “counterterrorism measures” to protect the pipeline project from the threat of peacefully gathered Lakota water protectors and their allies, who were camping in freezing temperatures and whose rights to tribal autonomy and free speech were being presently litigated at the UN. Folks traveled from all over the country to stand with Standing Rock, and when the state and fossil fuel industry united to snuff out that resistance, those folks went back to cities all over America with a bone to pick with the financiers and enablers of that attack.

Wells Fargo was a co-financier on the project, although as the bank itself points out, it contributed just 4.8% of the project’s credit facility, while 17 other banks provided forms of financing. That Wells Fargo was also the subject of investigation for illegally cross-selling products to customers without their consent (for which it has paid hundreds of millions in settlements to customers and shareholders) widened the target. And the bank’s involvement in the illegal foreclosure of homes following the financial crisis made them a target for housing justice activists all over the country.

Continue reading on Sydiot.