In July 2014, OneWest Bank and CIT Group announced a merger. CIT Group had accepted $2.3 billion in TARP funding that it never repaid because it declared bankruptcy. Nonprofits throughout the state very quickly raised concerns about the merger, citing the damage caused by the approximately 36,000 foreclosures conducted by OneWest in California, the bank's weak record in small business lending, the bank's weak community reinvestment act record, and concerns about possible redlining by the bank. On February 2, 2015, Daily Kos and the California Reinvestment Coalition visited the San Francisco Federal Reserve and delivered more than 15,000 petitions signed by people who opposed the merger. A picture of those petitions being delivered was included in a book by Al Gore. Bank regulators announced on February 6, 2015, that they would hold a public hearing about the proposed merger.
