(Business Week) — It was surely the only time that lawmakers hammering out the financial regulation bill were lobbied by a man wearing a hoodie and New York Yankees baseball hat. That’s how Russell Simmons showed up on Capitol Hill earlier this month to fight a proposal to cap the fees retailers pay banks to process debit-card payments. Simmons, best known for his Phat Farm clothing line and Def Jam music label, is also the owner of UniRush, a Cincinnati company that sells a prepaid Visa (V) debit card called RushCard, with about 2.5 million users. Simmons has persuaded lawmakers to exempt his business from a measure that would shift more of the cost of debit-card processing from retailers to the banks.
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