Across Texas, city councils are beginning to take the regulation of payday and auto title lenders into their own hands. But lobbyists have also been active in opposing municipal ordinances. 

Payday lenders are about to come under the microscope — the result of new laws designed to curb predatory lending and prevent a cycle of "debt and dependency."

If a set of bills filed by Sens. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, and Royce West, D-Dallas, passes this session, consumers who take out short-term, high-interest loans could be protected from exorbitant interest rate charges.

Short-term, high-interest lenders are clustered in neighborhoods where the median household income is less than $50,000 a year.

Desperate Texans who get crosswise with payday lenders quickly find they get no help from the state, which hasn't regulated the industry since 2005.