This afternoon Senator Dodd has introduced an anti-predatory lending bill that, if passed, will insure that a full-blown mess like the current subprime crisis will not happen in the future. Last month the House of Representatives passed HR 3915, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007 by a vote of 291 to 127.

Now Senate Banking Committee Chair, Chris Dodd, has introduced a companion bill on the Senate side which is much stronger and consumer friendly. We can, however, expect the same kind of intense industry pressure to water down the Senate bill that we witnessed in the House. You can help by letting your senator know that you want a law that holds Wall Street, the loan servicers, the appraisers, the lenders and the mortgage brokers all held accountable so that the junk loans of the past three years never get foisted on the American people again. .

You can keep track of this bill by checking in regularly with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

If you want more details go over the jump:

Today Congressman Frank seriously caved in on several issues that make what was a potentially good anti-predatory lending bill (HR 3915) too weak to make much difference in the fight against predatory lending. The House will begin working on this bill tomorrow so we need all members of Congress to get an urgent call or fax asking them to vote against the entire bill unless some specific measures are restored or added. The areas of concern include Yield Spread amendments, anti-steering provisions, lack of full accountability for Wall Street, too broad a preemption of state law and weakening of the provisions that protect tenants. Your call tonight or early tomorrow morning could make the difference as consumer groups are trying to fight back against the enormous pressure being brought to bear by the predatory lending industry.

Danielua (who I don’t know) has diaried this below, but this is so important that I’m following up. Details over the jump.

As I mentioned in a diary last week, Congressman Frank pushed an anti-predatory lending bill through the House Financial Services committee last week and that bill will likely be taken up by the whole House this week. The primary beneficiaries of bad loans, the mortgage brokers, mortgage lenders and the Wall Street securitizers are out in force right now trying to water the bill down and protect their interests. There will be amendments, both to strengthen this bill and weaken it. By weighing in with your Representative today, you can help protect consumers. Using the Democracy in Action web site hosted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition you can support the good guys in 60 seconds or less.  More of the whys and wherefores over the jump.

For the last several years Congressman Miller has worked on an anti-predatory lending bill and has visited us here to explain his work. Most recently this diary and this diary have given some background to his efforts.

Now his bill, supported by Congressman Watt and reworked by Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, has been marked up and moved through committee. It is moving quickly towards a vote in the full House of Representatives next week. The bill is pretty good, but it could be made better if a few thousand Kossacks would take a minute for some automated activism on the bill. Follow me over the jump and I’ll explain why and how.

Yesterday the federal banking regulators and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors gave a nudge to subprime loan servicers to explore ways to be more flexible in providing solutions for borrowers who are facing interest rate resets in the coming months. No doubt the banking regulators have seen the graphs showing that there are a huge number of subprime ARMs adjusting in February and March of 2008. Those two months will have roughly three times the dollar amount of mortgages resetting compared to average months during the last half of this year. No doubt there is a great deal of nervousness at the regulatory agencies and among investors about what the impact will be of that pig working its way through the python.  Over the jump I have the agency statement and my take on it.

  House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank and Ranking Republican Member Spencer Bachus yesterday sent a letter asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate the high number of foreclosures and to investigate the subprime mortgage market more generally.  Because the House Financial Services Committee is planning to pass anti-predatory lending legislation later this year they have asked the GAO to study the current state of the problem, the causes of the problem and to identify potential solutions.

   The GAO has a reputation for producing solid nonpartisan research on issues at the request of legislators and is one of the few agencies that so far appears to have escaped most of the relentless politicization of government by Karl Rove and his band of wary wanksters. Hopefully they will prepare an authoritative report that can answer some of the questions that are raised regularly in diaries on this site. Congressman Frank and Bacchus raise many of the questions that need answering, their questions are over the jump.

   This diary is also an opportunity for you to add questions you think need answering in order for us to be sure that we don’t repeat these mistakes again.

Yesterday, all of the Democratic members of the Senate Banking Committee (except Senator Johnson) sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke urging the Fed to take further action regarding predatory lending. The text of the letter is posted on Senator Dodd’s web site: http://dodd.senate.gov/...  
The Washington Post also has a story about the letter this morning. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Many of us remain critical of Senator Dodd for failing to aggressively use his position to create tougher legislation on predatory lending, but this letter putting pressure on the Federal Reserve is a half step in the right direction and should be applauded and followed up on.  I’ll outline the three key points made in the Democrat’s letter over the jump.

Today Senator Dodd hosted a meeting of leaders of Congress, industry and consumer groups in order to throw cold water on the idea that there should be a legislative fix to the problem of predatory lending this year. Whatever his motives may be, Senator Dodd is being spectacularly unhelpful on this issue. See news story here: http://www.reuters.com/...

It's time for Connecticut Kossacks to give him a talking to. I'll explain how and why after the fold.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky from Westchester has introduced Assembly Bill 3980 the "Omnibus Telecommunications Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2007" in the New York State Assembly. For those wishing to read the text of the bill it can be found at: http://assembly.state.ny.us/...
The bill seems to have a lot of support from progressive legislators and seems to handle many of the consumer protection and access issues that so many of us are concerned about in a progressive way. My questions about net neutrality are over the flop.

At noon today Senator Hillary Clinton addressed the Congressional luncheon of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). Her address focused on housing issues and the need for a renewed social contract surrounding mortgage lending. Much of the press coverage about the subprime lending issue in recent days has been framed improperly with the focus being on risky borrowers rather than properly being framed as a problem of risky loans.

The basics are that the most conservative House Republicans were angry that the bill contained a provision which will require that 5% of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's after tax earnings will be put in an Affordable Housing Fund that will be used to provide low income housing. They struck back by using their friends DeLay and Hastert to add a manager's amendment attacking voting registation. How and why did they do that?

Two of the leaders from the progressive movement against predatory lending, Stella Adams as a board member of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and Martin Eakes representing the Center for Responsible Lending,  each provided written testimony that provides a real tutorial for people attempting to fully understand the issue of predatory lending.  There are links to that testimony over the jump

Those of you who have been following this will know that there have been several diaries on the issue of predatory mortgage lending and that we all want to make sure that we are not caught as flat-footed as we were when the Bankruptcy Deform bills whipped through Congress. I laid out some of the problems with Congressman Ney's Responsible Lending Act (HR 1295) in this diary and Congressman Brad Miller has since weighed in with  a diary about his progressive "Prohibit Predatory Lending Act (HR 1182). Some Democrats are being dense by supporting the weak Ney bill while not supporting the strong Miller bill. It's time to hit them upside the head again. Make the jump for details.

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition had called for Gilleran to resign because he pushed thorugh the changes in spite of receiving overwhelmingly negative public comments during the comments period.  A number of Congressional Democrats had also harshly criticized Gilleran.

Out of some 4,200 public comments, over 4,000 opposed the OTS proposal and so groups like the National Community Reinvestment Coalition called for Gilleran's resignation, but (CRA*NC) has gone the political theatre route, delivering flowers and get well cards in the thousands to Mr. Gilleran's office.  Now they are offering all of us in the blogosphere the opportunity to send an electronic get well card. All you need to do is follow the instructions here.    

Following on the heels of Bankruptcy Deform, the House is gearing up to consider a Federal law to address predatory lending.  Rather than address the issue head on, as a proposed Democratic version would do, the powers that be are coalescing around a "bipartisan" bill drawn up by Rep. Robert Ney, Republican of Ohio, and Rep. Paul Kanjorski, Democrat of Pennsylvania (Scranton area).

The problem with the bill is that it superficially addresses some of the key predatory lending issues, but then leaves enough gaping loopholes behind the pretty facade for the predators to drive a truck through. In addition, the bill would pre-empt current state predatory lending laws, some of which have provided a much higher standard at the state level.  Because this has been touted as a "bipartisan" effort, several Democrats have unfortunately agreed to cosponsor the bill.  

We must let these erring Democrats know that this is a mistake, and that they instad should be co-sponsoring the Democratic version developed by Reps Miller, Watt and Frank instead.

Here is the list of those we need to contact, in addition to Kanjorski:

Rep. Harold Ford  - D-Memphis, TN  
Rep William Lacy Clay - D-St. Louis, MO  
Rep. Gregory Meeks - D-Queens, NY  
Rep. Darlene Hooley - D- Salem, OR
Rep. Bennie Thompson - D-Greenville, MS
Rep Joe Crowley - D-Bronx, Queens, NY  
Rep David Scott - D-Atlanta, GA
Rep. Brad Sherman - D-San Fernando Valley, CA