New Mexico Senate Democrats
For Immediate Release: February 20, 2017
Contact: Zach Marcus (505) 986-4882 Zachary.Marcus@nmlegis.gov
Senator Bill Tallman (D-18 Bernalillo) Passes Bill through Key Committee to Put New Mexicans Back to Work
(Santa Fe, NM) Today the Senate Corporations Committee passed Senator Bill Tallman’s bill to prevent employers from demanding credit checks from employees as a condition of submitting their application.
“After the worst recession in living memory, too many New Mexicans had their life savings wiped out and their credit rating suffered. That fact shouldn’t be used against them as they try to rebuild their lives and find employment,” said Senator Tallman.
“Credit checks have been proven to have no bearing whatsoever on the ability of an employee to do their job. This is just another way to victimize New Mexicans who have fallen on hard times,” Senator Tallman continued.
Ona Porter, President and CEO of Prosperity Works, spoke in favor of the bill saying, “A Federal Trade Commission report in February 2013 stated that 25% of consumers found errors in their credit reports. This only shows the further truth of what we already know: Credit History reports are used to continue to prevent working New Mexicans from getting ahead by shutting them out of jobs they would perform excellently if they only had the opportunity.”
The push to prevent businesses from demanding credit checks of potential employees has seen similar legislation passed in 11 states and many cities including New York City, the home of Wall Street.
In fact, the reasonableness of this bill is proved by the fact that credit check company Equifax announced in 2009 that they would no longer sell reports to employers saying: “Information contained in a credit report has no correlation to job performance and credit reports do not provide meaningful insight into a candidate’s character, responsibility, or prospective job performance.”
This bill now goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee and then to the Senate Floor.