The Cleveland Plain Dealer weighs in on yesterday’s results:

It didn’t matter how many millions of dollars payday lenders spent in their desperate attempt to continue charging 391 percent interest rates on short-term loans, Ohioans weren’t about to be fooled by their deceitful campaign.

Voters Tuesday dealt the payday-lending industry one of the most humiliating election defeats imaginable, overwhelmingly approving a measure (Issue 5) capping APR interest rates at 28 percent.

Proponents of State Issue 5 had a lot of help from churches and newspapers (every big-city daily endorsed its passage), but the campaign itself only spent about $500,000. The payday lenders spent about $22 million.

But in the end, their dirty money didn’t matter. If the lenders had spent $50 million opposing Issue 5, it still would have passed — big.

The lenders made a pathetic attempt to convince voters that opposing Issue 5 would save jobs. But Issue 5 was never about jobs. It was always about fairness, about preventing the payday lenders from preying on Ohio’s most vulnerable citizens. Ohioans understood that. The payday lenders and their high-priced consultants didn’t.

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