Red state lawmaker recounts personal experience of being 'debanked' and why it 'has to be stopped'
EXCLUSIVE: Protecting Americans from being "debanked" has been a top priority for the State Financial Officers Foundation, and Fox News Digital spoke to a member of that organization, who said he was targeted himself, about the importance of that pursuit.
"When I was initially debanked, I didn't realize I was getting debanked," Alabama Republican State Auditor Andrew Sorrell told Fox News Digital at the State Financial Officers Foundation conference in Orlando, Florida.
"What happened was I just get a letter one day from our credit card company, from my gun store, Gold Guns and Guitars, and we get this curious letter in the mail, and it says that in 30 days, we're closing your account. And it didn't tell us why at all."
Sorrell, 39, explained that at first he thought that his company had simply forgotten to pay their bills, but when he realized he was up-to-date, he switched credit card companies and did not think anything of it until he got another letter from his credit card processor notifying him he was being dropped.
"So we're doing about 2 million dollars in revenue, about a million and a half of that is done by credit card or debit card transactions, and I was really confused this time, because why would a credit card processor drop us?" Sorrell explained.
After that, Sorrell was told by his insurance company he was being dropped with "no explanation."
"I called my insurance broker, and he said, 'Oh yeah, this is happening to all gun stores,'" Sorrell said. "He said insurance companies are dropping all gun stores. And then it hit me. Oh my goodness, I'm a victim of political debanking. I didn't even realize that that's what was happening to me."
Debanking is the phenomenon in which a bank customer has their accounts canceled, often with no explanation. Conservatives have long alleged that banks were unfairly targeting them in the practice, with banks specifically going after companies with conservative messaging or principles, including gun stores.
In an interview with "Sunday Morning Futures" anchor Maria Bartiromo, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said he had seen "numerous" examples of conservatives being debanked during the Biden administration.
"Especially people that were involved in different energy-type businesses and things like that, as well as very well-spoken and outspoken conservative activists," Comer said in the interview. "So there are numerous instances, enough to open an investigation again. Is this [environmental, social and governance (ESG)] policy, which is discriminatory?"
Sorrell told Fox News Digital he is "convinced this is happening to other people in Alabama," and that the problem doesn't stem from local community banks but from large national banks who were "pushed" by the Obama and Biden administrations.
"I actually have some sympathy for these large banks, and I think passing debanking legislation at the state level might actually help some of these large banks, because they can go back, and they can say, I'm sorry, Alabama has now passed debanking legislation. We're just following the law, we don't wanna debank people anymore," Sorrell said.
"This is un-American, and it has to be stopped."
Since the Trump administration took office in January, pushing back against political debanking has become a more prevalent conversation in government, including in the form of a bill from GOP Sen. Tim Scott to address regulatory language that has prompted financial institutions to debank those involved in certain industries.
"It's clear that federal regulators have abused reputational risk by carrying out a political agenda against federally legal businesses," Scott said. "This legislation, which eliminates references to reputational risk in regulatory supervision, is the first step once and for all."
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