Congressional Reform

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- A bureaucratic paperwork mistake reportedly has lawmakers and the White House scrambling to sort out Wednesday's presidential veto of the $290 billion farm bill and subsequent override by the House.

The Associated Press reported late Wednesday that while the Senate had been expected to quickly follow suit on the override, action was stalled when it was discovered Congress left out a 34-page section of the bill when lawmakers sent the massive measure to the White House.

As a result, President Bush vetoed a different bill from the one Congress passed, raising questions whether the eventual law would be unconstitutional, the AP noted.
According to the report, House Democrats hoped to pass the entire bill, again, on Thursday under expedited rules usually reserved for unopposed legislation, with the Senate expected to follow. The correct version would then be sent to Bush under a new bill number for another expected veto.

Lawmakers also will have to pass an extension of current farm law, which expires Friday. The AP quoted Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., as saying, "We will have to repass the whole thing, as will the Senate. We can't let the farm bill just die."

"We are trying to understand the ramifications of this congressional farm bill foul-up. We haven't found a precedent for a congressional blunder of this magnitude," Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman, told the AP. "It looks like it may be back to square one for them."

When Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota wanted a mortgage for his beach house, he turned to a Washington insider, James A. Johnson, former head of Fannie Mae, the government mortgage giant, who then put the senator in touch with Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of the mortgage lender Countrywide Financial.

The ensuing telephone call between Mr. Conrad and Mr. Mozilo led to two Countrywide mortgages, including one in which the company bent its rules to give Mr. Conrad a loan.

Those loans are now among a number of Countrywide mortgages at the center of an examination into whether a number of top politicians in Washington — members of Congress, the cabinet and celebrated advisers — received favorable deals from a company whose lax lending standards are at the center of the subprime mortgage crisis.

This week, Mr. Johnson, whom Mr. Conrad turned to for help, was forced to step down as head of Senator Barack Obama’s vice-presidential selection committee in part over Countrywide home mortgage loans that Mr. Johnson had received at favorable rates.

At the center of the scrutiny is Countrywide’s “V.I.P.” program, also known as the “Friend of Angelo” program, in which Countrywide appeared to bend its lending rules for prominent people. Now, many of those receiving Countrywide home mortgages say they were not aware the company might have been working behind the scenes to give them favorable loan terms.

Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a leader in the effort to help homeowners caught in the mortgage crisis, denied on Friday that he received preferential treatment for his two Countrywide loans. A spokesman for Mr. Dodd, Bryan DeAngelis, said that neither Mr. Dodd nor his wife had spoken to Mr. Mozilo about their loans.

“As a United States senator, I would never ask or expect to be treated differently than anyone else refinancing their home,” Mr. Dodd said in a statement. “This suggestion is outrageous and contrary to my entire career in public service. Just like millions of other Americans, we shopped around and received competitive rates.”

But Portfolio.com, the Web site of the business magazine Portfolio, cited internal documents indicating that Countrywide had reduced the rate on the mortgage of Mr. Dodd’s Washington town house by three-eighths of a point, saving him $2,000 a year in interest payments, and reduced the rate on a Connecticut house by a quarter point, saving $17,000 over the life of the loan.

For Mr. Dodd, who is said to be on a short list for vice president for Mr. Obama, the Countrywide mortgages may prove to be a problem in light of Mr. Obama’s ejection Mr. Johnson from his campaign over a similar issue.

“Obama has set such high standards on ethics,” said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington. “If indeed Chris Dodd got below-market loans, it could be a disqualifier for someone being considered for an important appointment.”

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Politicians in the administration and Congress seem so out of touch with the reality of ordinary folks.

The understatement of the season!

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the longest serving U.S. Republican senator, was indicted Tuesday on seven counts of making false statements to federal investigators, according to media reports. The Justice Department is expected to announce the charges shortly.

Stevens, 84, has been dogged by a federal investigation into whether he pushed for fishing legislation that also benefited his son, an Alaska lobbyist.

From May 1999 to August 2007, prosecutors said Stevens concealed "his continuing receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things of value from a private corporation."
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Sen. Ted Stevens indicted on 7 criminal counts

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080729/...ens_indictment

I think the US could use a viable third party, or viable Independent candidates.

WASHINGTON – Democrats may want to start thinking about a bailout for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, whose political stock has slipped amid the financial meltdown.

As a five-term Democrat who blew out his last two opponents by 2-1 margins in a blue state that President Barack Obama won handily, Dodd, D-Conn., should be cruising to re-election in 2010. Instead, he's feeling heat from a Republican challenger eager to make him a poster boy for the tumult in the housing and financial markets.

A recent poll showed former Rep. Rob Simmons running about even with Dodd, a former national Democratic Party chairman.

As head of the banking panel, Dodd, 64, has become a convenient target for voter anger over the economic crisis.

"The fact that we have been beaten up, beaten around the head for the last eight or nine months on a regular basis has contributed to it as well," Dodd said.

Some of the worst blows came amid the furor over $165 million in bonuses American International Group Inc. paid some of its employees while receiving billions of dollars in federal bailout money. After first denying it, Dodd admitted he agreed to a request by Treasury Department officials to dilute an executive bonus restriction in the big economic stimulus bill that Congress passed last month. The change to Dodd's amendment allowed AIG to hand out the bonuses and sparked a blame game between Dodd and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Dodd was guarded Thursday when asked about Geithner.

"This is obviously a matter that obviously should have been dealt with differently, but we are where we are," he said.

Republicans branded Dodd's reversal "astonishing and alarming" and fingered Dodd as the top recipient of campaign cash from AIG employees over the years.

The GOP is slamming Dodd, claiming he is cozying up to Wall Street insiders, raking in bundles of their campaign cash, shirking his banking panel duties and running for president as the economic crisis erupted in 2007.

He's also under investigation by a Senate ethics panel for mortgages he got from Countrywide Financial Corp., the big lending company at the center of the mortgage crisis.

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WASHINGTON — When President Obama arrived at the Mandarin Oriental hotel for a fund-raising reception on Thursday night, the new White House rules of political purity were in order: no lobbyists allowed.

But at the same downtown hotel on Friday morning, registered lobbyists have not only been invited to attend an issues conference with Democratic leaders, but they have also been asked to come with a $5,000 check in hand if they want to stay in good favor with the party’s House and Senate re-election committees.

The practicality of Mr. Obama’s pledge to change the ways of Washington is colliding once more with the reality of how money, influence and governance interact here. He repeatedly declared while campaigning last year that he would “not take a dime” from lobbyists or political action committees.

So to follow through with that promise, Mr. Obama is simply leaving the room.

For the first time in eight years, Democrats have a president of their own to preside over their political fund-raising activities. And Mr. Obama’s rules have hardly stopped the bustling intersection of money and politics. Not only are members of Congress already engaged in their next races, but legislative battles over health care, energy and financial regulation have also put a premium on access and influence for many lobbyists and their clients.
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The man said that he knew Mr. Reid, and that Mr. Reid was an idiot. So was his Republican opponent, Sharron Angle. In fact, said the man, . . . , he might very well choose a third option here in Nevada: the phantom candidate known as None of the Above.
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As Nancy Pelosi goes, so might a generation of her colleagues.

Or to pose this as a question: how could a President attempt to curb the influence of lobbyists over Congress?

In Nevada, It’s Hold Nose and Cast Vote.