A powerful ally of payday lenders is furious over the industry’s perceived end-run on new restrictions on high-cost instant loans and is vowing to block it. Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, said he is writing legislation to prohibit lenders from offering so-called open-ended loans with potentially unlimited fees. Saslaw’s bill—and a similar measure by Del. G. Glenn Oder, R-Newport News, an industry foe—would restrict lenders to payday loans, which a law that took effect Jan. 1 seeks to control through complex repayment rules and higher fees.

The Supreme Court of Virginia yesterday heard arguments in Maine’s last chance to obtain a 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence it says belongs to the town of Wiscasset. “Public documents belong to the government, they don’t belong to people,“ Thomas A. Knowlton, a Maine assistant attorney general, told the Virginia justices yesterday. He said the print belongs to the town.