In February 1975, a coalition of more than three dozen consumer groups paid a call on the newly installed chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin. Proxmire, a progressive who had previously headed the subcommittee on consumer protection, had already authored several landmark laws, including the Truth in Lending Act. The coalition wanted Proxmire to sponsor a deceptively simple law, which came to be known as the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The act requires banks and savings institutions to disclose, by zip code, the number and amount of loans they make in their primary service areas.