That is, real as in “not imaginary,” and big as in “very significant.” What is that real, big problem? Foreclosures. In fact, Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent tells us, Bachmann’s district and Keith Ellison’s district, which is right next to hers, have the highest and second-highest foreclosure rates, respectively, in the state. But the two House members are responding to this crisis in very different ways:
… Bachmann’s record in Congress is not one of a representative whose district faces such a crisis. Bachmann hasn’t authored or sponsored any legislation to assist homeowners facing foreclosure, but she has co-sponsored 14 bills to restrict abortions and five to promote Christianity in government.
Bachmann voted against five key foreclosure relief bills, including the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act, which would set standards for mortgages and reduce predatory lending, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Act, which would provide funds for buying and rehabilitating foreclosed properties in affected neighborhoods. She also opposed the Expanding American Homeownership Act, which allows more people to qualify for FHA-backed mortgages, and the Expand and Preserve Home Ownership Through Counseling Act, which aims to improve financial literacy. Bachmann additionally voted against the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, a law signed by President Bush that contained many provisions to assist struggling homeowners and also the only one of the bills to become law.
Before the first four of these measures reached the House floor, Bachmann opposed them in the House Financial Services Committee. She also voted against the FHA Housing Stabilization and Homeownership Rentention Act of 2008, which did not receive a floor vote. The bill would have provided mortgage refinancing assistance to struggling families and expanded FHA loan programs.
Bachmann further offered an amendment to block increased funding for HOPE for Homeowners, a Department of Housing and Urban Development program that helps families facing foreclosure to refinance their mortgages.
When Congress was debating strategies to assist families facing foreclosure, Bachmann called those homeowners “irresponsible.”
“Now, we can debate whether this is the right thing to do as it may seem that you’re rewarding the irresponsible while punishing those who have been playing by the rules,” she said in Febraury. “When President Obama released his plan … to prevent home foreclosures, the point he wanted to get across to everyone watching was that money from folks who have been making their payments on time will not just be handed over to those folks who got in over their heads and bought a house they knew they couldn’t afford.”
Ellison’s efforts to address the foreclosure crisis have been noticed on a national scale.
He authored a bill that gives renters 90 days notice when a housing unit goes into foreclosure and allow them to finish their lease.
“I think it’s in the best interest of the banks to keep people in these [housing] units,” Ellison told the Independent. “These empty buildings create nuisances for crime, they get vandalized. While they sit empty, people come in and steal copper piping and it creates a risk for fire.”
The New York Times editorial board hailed Ellison’s bill. “This legislation would be good for renting families, which have been unfairly penalized by this crisis,” wrote the Times. “It would also help to stabilize heavily foreclosed neighborhoods by keeping buildings occupied and alive in areas that might otherwise become ghost towns.”
In the last session, Ellison authored the Fairness for Homeowners Act, which would add new regulations to mortgage lenders such as verifying a borrower’s ability to pay and eliminating pre-payment penalties. Last Tuesday he and Sen. Amy Klobuchar reintroduced that bill.
“Throughout all this, we still haven’t passed anti-predatory lending legislation,” Ellison said. “We need to get some actual regulation. The industry keeps saying that anti-predatory lending has dried up, but there is still a lot of it out there.”
Ellison said he’s introduced the bill every session, and others have offered it before he got to Congress, but still Congress fails to act on the bill.
Ellison is also a co-sponsor of 12 other bills aimed at providing relief to individuals and communities impacted by the foreclosure crisis. His voting record in Congress on housing is virtually the opposite of Bachmann’s.
Bachmann and Ellison both sit on the Financial Services Committee. Ellison voted for all five of the foreclosure-related committee bills that Bachmann voted against, and the same was true of the five floor votes on foreclosure legislation.
But the two did vote together on one House resolution that directs the government to protect “buyers from unscrupulous mortgage brokers and lenders.”
That resolution says that government should establish minimum standards for lenders, increase opportunities for homeowner counseling and strengthen lender evaluations of a borrower’s ability to repay a mortgage.
Bills were offered to address each of those needs identified by the resolution, but Bachmann voted against them.
Of course, the reason why Bachmann is doing nothing to help her constituents who have been so hard hit by the mortgage meltdown is clear: Those constituents’ problems are real. They are not imaginary at all.
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