Last year, New York’s state legislature, which has historically led the nation in passing pro-consumer credit legislation, approved a pair of bills aimed at protecting residents from questionable lending practices, the kind that have come back to haunt the economy. One of them would have put the brakes on the “universal default” provision, which lenders use to jack up the rates on credit cards if a cardholder misses a payment on a card issued by another lender. This practice has caused credit-card rates for some people to soar into the 20 or even the 30 percent range, far surpassing what once was considered criminal usury and helping to pile on debt that has contributed to mortgage foreclosures. But then-Governor Eliot Spitzer vetoed the bill, arguing that it would force lenders to increase interest rates or fees for all credit-card holders, even those with good credit records. Spitzer also claimed that the law wouldn’t do any good anyway because federal law would preempt state law, and federal law allows banks to bypass state usury laws by setting up shop in states with lax regulation.

Whatever the merits of Spitzer’s argument, it was an important discussion for New York and the rest of the country. But his veto was like the proverbial tree falling in the empty forest. The AP’s Albany bureau sent out no story, and the news editor does not recall why. A Nexis search found only one brief mention of the veto, in the Albany Times Union. Spitzer sided with the banks and the media were silent.

This would not always have been the case. What happened in Albany is just one piece of evidence of the decline of the consumer movement, the rise of consumerism to replace it, and the media’s role in both trends....

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