I checked out Wikipedia on credit unions to make sure I had the story straight about membership restrictions. I sort of had it right about the Clinton era law, but, interestingly, expanded membership actually began under Reagan when the banks were being deregulated. Who'd of thought Reagan's push to deregulate the banking industry (which brought us the S&L collapse and set the stage for our current financial mess) would have had an unintended good side effect.

Here's a bit from the Wikipedia entry on CUs. The actual topic is longer and worth reading if you're interested.

Membership restrictions

In the United States, as elsewhere, credit unions were formed around a single church, place of work, or town. Membership was limited to those who were in the field of membership. The Federal Credit Union Act of 1934 limited membership to "groups having a common bond of occupation or association, or to groups within a well-defined neighborhood, community or rural district."[65]

A 1982 federal regulation during Ronald Reagan's presidency allowed many credit unions to grow their memberships and expand into multiple states. Credit union membership reached 71 million members by 1997, more than double the number of members in 1991.[65] This expansion prompted banks to challenge the 1982 regulation as illegal, a challenge upheld in a 1998 U.S. Supreme Court decision, NCUA v. First National Bank & Trust[65][66] Within five months, both houses of Congress passed a bill signed by President Clinton to overturn the Court's decision.[67]

As of 2003, U.S. governmental regulatory agencies require that credit unions restrict their membership to defined segments of the population, such as people who live, work, worship, or attend school in a well-defined geographic area; employees of specific companies or trades; members of specific non-profit groups (alumni associations, conservation or other advocacy organizations, lodges, churches, or the like); or a particular occupational group (teachers, doctors, etc.).[68] In the U.S., this is referred to as a credit union's "field of membership." Internationally it is referred to as the bond of association.

Super-Fun-Paks are always entertaining. Love the Malia and Sasha dolls satire, but I'm also particularly fond of Selfish Gene since I'm an evolutionary biologist.

I testified yesterday at the Texas State Board of Education in favor of leaving language out that would serve as an opening to teaching creationist ideas as science. I am a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Texas and explained in plain language to the Board that Texas is doing a mediocre job of teaching science to our youth and that we are jeopardizing our future by doing so. I also explained why the language they want to insert about teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolution is both unnecessary and is essentially a political wedge to introduce nonscientific ideas into the science classroom.

After giving my statement, I stayed for an additional three hours to follow the proceedings. The most frustrating aspect of the whole exercise is that, in my opinion, the whole thing amounts to little more than a form of Kabuki theater. The questioning of speakers and the way the chair allowed some to speak at length during questioning and not others made it apparent that nothing that was being said by either side of the issue was actually influencing any member to reconsider their position.

I have little doubt that if the language favored by the creationists is inserted that it will be challenged, but that it will be harder than in previous cases to persuade a jury that it represents teaching of religion in a science classroom and therefore violates the establishment clause of the Constitution. On the face of it, the language seems innocuous enough, "Teach the strengths and weaknesses of a scientific theory." The creationists are becoming more subtle in their attempts to undermine the teaching of evolution.

Over the short term, this will again need to be played out in the courts. Over the longer term, we must do a better job of teaching what science is and how it works. Unfortunately, unlike Europe, acceptance of evolutionary theory is likely to be a multigenerational struggle given the strong influence of fundamentalist religion in our culture.

This sort of fear mongering has been done before and far more effectively by Joe McCarthy. What Bachus doesn't seem to realize is that the Cold War is long over and that communism and socialism no longer strike fear into most of the population. The fraction of individuals likely to have their irrational buttons pushed by his tactic is small and growing smaller every day since these would most likely be folks aged 65 and up.

I think any functioning democracy needs the frank exchange of ideas among parties that have the country's best interests at heart, but different ideas about what is best and how to achieve it. The current Republican party is incapable of fulfilling that role and needs to be put out of its misery so something else can replace it. They have never been more evidently bankrupt of ideas worthy of consideration than they are at this moment.