But Ms. Lundy is not a lawmaker, a government employee or even a statehouse intern.
She is a lobbyist for one of the nation’s largest lenders.
That lender — controlled by the Fortress Investment Group, one of Wall Street’s most powerful private equity firms — wrote the bill. Months later, in 2014, the state’s legislators passed the law, making it easier to charge interest of 36 percent to borrowers living on the financial margins.
The political access in Arizona was just one component of a broader effort to loosen consumer protection laws, according to emails obtained through public records requests. In nine other states, Ms. Lundy’s client helped win legislative changes, persuading lawmakers that it needed to raise costs to stay in business and serve borrowers.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, Fortress and other private equity firms have rapidly expanded their influence, assuming a pervasive, if under-the-radar, role in daily American life, an investigation by The New York Times has found. Sophisticated political maneuvering — including winning government contracts, shaping public policy and deploying former public officials to press their case — is central to this growth.
Yet even as private equity wields such influence in the halls of state capitols and in Washington, it faces little public awareness of its government activities, The Times found.
