Let's have a show of hands.

To those of you in small business: have you noticed the banks getting tough with you on credit?  To customers of banks: have you noticed all the funny business with higher fees and shorter grace periods with credit cards? Does it annoy you that the big banks and Wall street get bailed out with little oversight or accountability,  and the rest of us on Main Street and the neighborhoods of San Francisco and beyond suffer with no relief in sight?

Here's one thing you can do.  Sign a petition from the Consumer Watchdog, a militant warrior for consumer rights in Washington, D.C., demanding that Sen. Dodd, a heavily bank-financed Democrat from Connecticut,  support an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  Carmen Balber, Consumer Watchdog's DC director, supplies the details on the petition and  Dodd's dancing and waffling. Balber writes in her email alert:

The Senate's Wall Street reform bill will be public any day now but its author, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, still won't say where he stands on consumer protection.

Sign your name to our petition today. Demand that Senator Dodd stand up for consumers, not Wall Street, by supporting an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency with full power to write, oversee and enforce new rules of the road to hold the big banks accountable.

In November, Dodd released a reform bill with a strong consumer protection agency. But news reports in January said he might abandon it, in February that it was back on track, and just last week that the consumer regulator was in doubt once again.

What's the real story?

Tell Senator Dodd it's time to make his choice. Will he stand with Wall Street or Main Street?

Sign the petition demanding Senator Dodd stand up for an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

Thanks for signing,

Carmen Balber
Consumer Watchdog's DC Director

Consumer Watchdog is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer protection organization.
To support their work, please make a tax-deductible contribution here.