Posted on 10/07/2010 8:03:55 AM PDT by STARWISE
Both the left and right sides of the blogosphere are buzzing about a bipartisan TARP-style banking bailout bill that somehow reached President Obama’s desk in the legislative rush before Congress adjourned for the midterm election break.
The sordid episode underscores everything I’ve spotlighted about the culture of corruption over the last two years — sabotage of the deliberative process, circumventing of rules, backroom deals, and contempt for the will of the people.
Yes, the Vampire Congress strikes again.
The bill is HR3808, the “Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010,” which requires courts to accept as valid notarized letters made out of state, making it harder to challenge the authenticity of foreclosure and other legal documents. Here’s the legislative history of the bill.
Reuters lays out the basic story:
*snip*
And now, the dirty details of the legislative legerdemain that paved the bill’s path to Obama’s desk:
After languishing for months in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill passed the Senate with lightning speed and with hardly any public awareness of the bill’s existence on September 27, the day before the Senate recessed for midterm election campaign.
The bill’s approval involved invocation of a special procedure. Democratic Senator Robert Casey, shepherding last-minute legislation on behalf of the Senate leadership, had the bill taken away from the Senate Judiciary committee, which hadn’t acted on it.
The full Senate then immediately passed the bill without debate, by unanimous consent. No debates.
No amendments.
No roll call votes.
More:
The House had passed the bill in April. The House actually had passed identical bills twice before, but both times they died when the Senate Judiciary Committee failed to act.
Some House and Senate staffers said the Senate committee had let the bills languish because of concerns that they would interfere with individual state’s rights to regulate notarizations.
Senate staffers familiar with the judiciary committee’s actions said the latest one passed by the House seemed destined for the same fate. But shortly before the Senate’s recess, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy pressed to have the bill rushed through the special procedure, after Leahy “constituents” called him and pressed for passage.
The staffers said they didn’t know who these constituents were or if anyone representing the mortgage industry or other interests had pressed for the bill to go through.
These staffers said that, in an unusual display of bipartisanship, Senator Jeff Sessions, the committee’s senior Republican, also helped to engineer the Senate’s unanimous consent for the bill.
Neither Leahy’s nor Session’s offices responded to requests for comment Wednesday.
I'm sure there's more to that one than the Freeper told you.
As far as owning title goes, the "homeowner" doesn't have title until the loan is paid off. When a mortgage is made and bundled with a bunch of other mortgages, then the whole group is broken into tranches and sold off to a myriad of investors, who owns the title?
Not the deadbeat "homeowner", that's for sure.
see post 56
see post 61
And the “tranching” seems to have been conducted in such a convoluted manner as to render the current title holder impossible to determine in many cases. The banks can’t extract themselves from this self inflicted bind by falsifying doumentation of ownership. They are not above the law and establishing ownership of the title is not a mere technicality.
God in Heaven, are you deaf????
Your so sure, based on what???
Your highly vaulted sense of superiority???
Stick your head in the sand, bozo.
Put your trust in these bankster liars, idiot.
Call other freepers liars, uh?
Are you a liar too?? Takes one to know one!!!
“...group is broken into tranches and sold off to a myriad of investors, who owns the title? Not the deadbeat “homeowner”, that’s for sure.”
AND NOT THE HOMEOWNER EITHER.
WAKE UP!!!
.
You cant count on that. I aint no snitch. I'm from Brooklyn.
I called no one a liar - just pointed out that there’s usually two sides to a story.
You on the other hand have no problem hurling names and insults. That tells me all I need to know about you.
Then show some respect.
If you have an idea, I’d love to hear it. But calling me out - not about the ideas, but on my personal integrity - is not something I will take lightly.
And neither would you. You’re from Brooklyn. All the folks I know from Brooklyn are all plenty vocal, and have plenty of good, common sense ideas...
This is a place to share them, not squabble.
No - not establishing title ownership is not a technicality. I was referring more to the robosigning on that one.
I guarantee that something in the loan docs determines where title lies, and how it may be assigned. The MBS docs likely do also. It’s a mess, but it will get straightened out.
For the sake of our nation, I certainly hope it does.
Please don’t misunderstand my position: unwinding these assets is absolutely necessary if the housing market is to ever recover, My family has a direct stake in that recovery. But it can’t come at the expense of another de facto bailout of the banks for their criminally stupid decisions. We just can’t go down that road.
Thank you.
“This may turn into a revenue enhancer for the legal profession”
What isn’t? -:)
************
“Part of the problem of our time is that the institutions are so large as to be above accountability”
Yep- public and private.
Ha! Avoiding the issue is quite the bastion of the truthful, is it?
You ignored the POSSIBILITY that someone COULD not have title EVEN WHEN they have paid their mortgage off. Didn’t fit your agenda.
“...the “homeowner” doesn’t have title until the loan is paid off.”
“...group is broken into tranches and sold off to a myriad of investors, who owns the title? Not the deadbeat “homeowner”, that’s for sure.”
So, is it ONLY DEADBEATS who have had their mortgages broken??? Really??? HOW DO YOU KNOW????
So you would rather pile on the “deadbeats”, than deal with the real issue of the destruction of property rights in this entire nation. You’re not a deadbeat. Lalala! You’re not listening!!!!
“I guarantee that something in the loan docs determines where title lies,...”
Well, I gave you an example where that is NOT the case.
So much for your guarantee. You are just SO SURE, nothing is wrong. Except deadbeats. Yeah, lets just blame this whole sorry mess on the deadbeats and not the thieven’ banks.
barf
I agree with that completely. But this isn’t a bank bailout - it’s an attempt to help prevent a bailout that would make TARP look like pocket change.
And just like that....Obama has his very first accomplishment as President.
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday,
the fifth day of January, two thousand and ten
An Act
To require any Federal or State court to recognize any notarization made by a notary public licensed by a State other than the State where the court is located when such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce.
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Vice President of the United States and
President of the Senate.
You beat me to it. Did not read far enough to see you listed the text.
TF
I don’t know about the timing of this bill. It has apparently been pending for years. I thought consent bills were usually ones over which there was no serious disagreement between the parties and the unanimous approval here seems to indicate that even the most partisan Repub sees no problem with it.
I know there are allegations about fraudulent foreclosures. I know there is a matter right now pending where a GMAC employee has testified he signed thousands of affidavits without checking the information. That is a serious problem, for him. Whether it is a serious problem for GMAC depends on whether the information was correct, whether or not the employee had personal knowledge of it. But that doesn’t go to the heart of recognizing out-of-state notaries.
Like it or not, the wild mortage business of the last couple of decades has resulted in lots of mortgages passing hands, over and over as they were securitized or the originators went out of business. There are going to be gaps in original documents. The question is whether the absence works a loss to the mortgagor and that should be proved by the mortgagor, not the fifth generation mortgage holder. If the mortgagor entered into a contract, and if the contract is still being honored according to its terms, then I don’t believe the mortgagor has the right to invalidate the deal because there is a gap in the chain of title. There is such a thing as the “clean hands doctrine” in the law where a defendant can hardly cry foul if he or she isn’t living up to their end of the bargain.
This administration has wreaked havoc on the law of private contracts. It has stiffed bond holders, stockholders, car dealerships, pensioners in England, landowners, you name it. If it now manages to invalidate mortgages then we will be in deep doodoo. You may win on your mortgage but woe unto anyone who wants a mortgage in the future.
You are a cop? :-)
If you have an idea, I’d love to hear it. But calling me out - not about the ideas, but on my personal integrity - is not something I will take lightly.
I havent sad anything about your personal integrity....yet.
And neither would you. You’re from Brooklyn. All the folks I know from Brooklyn are all plenty vocal, and have plenty of good, common sense ideas...
One part of Brooklyn I lived in was Chuck Schumers district (when he was a congressman), and a Republican hadnt been elected in that district since 1921. So I cant say my neighbors had any good common sense ideas.
This is a place to share them, not squabble.
You can do both.
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