APRO recently hosted an inaugural roundtable of state rental dealer association (RDA) lobbyists and representatives to talk about issues and bills coming up in state capitols across the country with the potential to impact rent-to-own businesses.
The group specifically discussed the reintroduction of a bill in the New York State Legislature to recharacterize RTO as a financial arrangement subject to interest-rate limits. The New York Rental Dealers Association leadership and lobby team, in conjunction with APRO, are actively engaged in battling the bill and ensuring such legislation doesn’t spread to other states. Fortunately, few other states are facing such negative proposals at the moment, but taxation measures were mentioned repeatedly as a shared concern.
APRO CEO Charles Smitherman also outlined for the group some new resources and tools being developed by the association to help provide state RDAs with what they need to engage effectively with policymakers and advance the interests of the rent-to-own industry:
- This month, APRO is launching a new Advocacy Hub offering training, materials, and other resources to help members actively engage in legislative advocacy. The hub will include key talking points, state economic impact reports broken down by federal district, a state legislative sessions calendar, and an advocacy training course.
- APRO is currently creating webpages for all state RDAs to include a variety of valuable resources, such as leadership information, upcoming events, legislative alerts, state RTO statutes, congressional district maps, and other key updates at the state level.
- In addition to issuing legislative alerts for items of immediate importance, APRO will begin distributing a monthly digest of all bills at the state and federal levels being monitored by APRO and RDAs.
Additionally, Smitherman discussed the upcoming APRO Legislative Conference (April 8-10, 2025, in Washington, D.C.), and encouraged RDAs to hold their own legislative events to provide state lawmakers with RTO education and establish themselves as helpful resources.
APRO plans to reconvene the group following this year’s state legislative sessions to review results and prepare for the next legislative cycle.