This week, the American Recovery Association highlighted the inroads on Capitol Hill made by the Repo Alliance, which spearheads lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., on behalf of repossession agents.

Repo Alliance founders Dave Kennedy, Mike Peplinski, Stephanie Findley and Marcelle Egley Sparks, along with ARA president Vaughn Clemmons and fellow agents, Richard Grosvenor and Todd Case, traveled to the nation’s capital earlier this month to reconnect with representatives of Van Scoyoc and Associates, the recovery industry lobbyist firm, and several Congressional senior policy advisors.

“Due to the dedicated efforts of Van Scoyoc and Associates, and the strategic plan they have designed and are implementing for us, we were able to focus this visit on the negative impacts that changes in the industry have had on us as small businesses,” ARA said in an industry message.

“By designing our visit and messaging with this focus, we were able to expand the universe of Congressional targets and, for the first time in the history of the recovery industry, we were provided the opportunity to meet with members and staff of the Small Business Committee. Our many meetings included senior staffers for the committee itself,” the association continued.

The repossession industry formed the Repo Alliance during the pandemic when agents were forced to stand down by state and federal regulators, forcing dozens of agencies to close permanently. ARA recapped that the Repo Alliance has been working to develop and deliver the industry’s message to key congressional leaders across several key committees.

And this year, ARA cheered the paths made to reach congressional staff associated with small businesses.

“We have had a number of successful meetings with these members over the last several months and our May fly-in was designed to build off of the traction we were seeing,” ARA officials said. “And that approach proved to be successful.

“As we moved from one congressional office to the next, staff members were engaged and receptive, offering to take concrete steps to support our efforts to address those unfairly challenging our businesses,” they continued.

ARA shared that the Repo Alliance explained the challenges agents face, including “one-sided” contracts, market imbalance, offloading of liability by lenders, and the implications for being able to address wrongful repossessions.

“Every staff member was engaged, taking notes, asking questions and gaining insight into our industry,” ARA said. It was clear that small business issues and issues challenging Main Street America are major points of concern of interest to this Congress.

“There is no question our message was heard loud and clear,” ARA added. “We definitely have their attention.”