Senator Urges State Regulators to Support Senior$afe Act

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, urged state securities regulators Monday to rally behind her Senior$afe Act of 2015, which aims to help financial professionals report elder financial fraud.

Collins introduced the legislation, which is modeled on a Senior Safe program in her state, last October along with Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. She told state securities regulators at the North American Securities Administrators Association’s annual policy conference in Washington that she and McCaskill need to add more co-sponsors to the bill’s current seven.

“We need to have more co-sponsors of members who serve on the [Senate] Banking Committee,” she said, adding that she and McCaskill are “about to write” to the Committee and urge it to take “up our bill and report it to the full Senate for consideration.”

She then encouraged state securities regulators to voice their support for the bill during their Monday visits to Capitol Hill. “We’re tweaking language to make sure it’s technically correct, but we need your help in pushing the bill over the finish line,” Collins said.

“I’m optimistic that if we can show greater interest in the bill, we can get it approve by the Senate,” she added. She said her hope is that the Senate would approve the bill by voice vote and that the House would take it up in a lame-duck session this fall.

The Senior$afe Act would provide immunity from lawsuits for certain individuals who disclose potential examples of financial exploitation of senior citizens.