Hours before lawmakers returned to the state Capitol for their spring session, Dick Saslaw welcomed deep-pocketed visitors: the head of giant payday lender Advance America, the company’s chief lobbyist and its fixer in Richmond. The trio told the Senate Democratic boss that the company had found a legal way to—and would—bypass profit-cutting restrictions Saslaw won last winter, perhaps as penance for his status as an industry defender and major beneficiary of its campaign cash.

Senators who protected the high-cost instant-loan industry now are smacking it around. Voting 9-1 yesterday, the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee backed Senate Bill 1470, which would block a perceived end-run by payday lenders on restrictions that took effect only 26 days ago. “They’ve broken faith with what we did,“ said Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, D-Russell, referring to the 2008 battle over rules less onerous than those demanded by industry opponents. “And I’m one of the guys who stood with them.“