bailout

WELLESLEY - Barney Frank's two challengers teamed up Sunday to criticize the congressman for what they called his failure to properly regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two mortgage lenders at the heart of the current financial crisis.

Frank emphatically defended himself, saying his efforts to regulate the industry were stymied by the twelve years Republicans controlled Congress. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac came under fire earlier this year for backing bad mortgages that eventually lead to the current credit crisis that Congress acted to remedy with a several hundred billion dollar bailout proposal.

However, Earl Sholley, the Republican in the race, called Frank the "chief architect of the mortgage meltdown."

"All of this is well documented that Mr. Frank is the key player," Sholley said. "In fact, recently former President Bill Clinton made the statement on ABC News that when he was in the White House, he and the Republicans tried to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and every time they attempted to do so, the Democrats blocked their efforts."

Despite being out of Congress, John Kasich is campaigning as hard as ever.

The former Republican U.S. representative from Columbus has done more than 40 fundraisers for GOP state House candidates and his Recharge Ohio political action committee has sent volunteers to knock on more than 35,000 doors for the candidates. At stake is the GOP’s three-seat majority and tipping the balance in state government to Democrats who have the governor’s office.

Kasich said his PAC is vital to preventing Democrats from winning the chamber.

“Outside of the Republican Party, I have no doubt that it’s the most effective organization in helping Republicans in the state,” he said.

LOUISVILLE -- Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford, of Louisville, objected to several aspects of the recently-passed bailout package today, suggesting the bill was rushed through without provisions that would have benefitted taxpayers.

"What I am mainly concerned about is everybody rushed to the plate to get a bill passed so they could get home and run for office," Lunsford told reporters after holding a roundtable discussion with AFL-CIO members this morning.

The legislation in question passed the Senate last Wednesday, with a supporting vote cast by Lunsford's opponent in Kentucky's U.S. Senate contest, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville). Revised from the edition that failed there on Monday, the bill then passed the U.S. House on Friday with some so-called "sweeteners" included in the package that were said to have some swung some votes to the "aye" side.

While he did not specifically say he would have voted against the bill, Lunsford suggested it was incomplete and seemingly referenced some of the so-called "sweeteners."

"When I see a bill that they can't pass on their own - that they've got to add all the things in to get votes - that immediately raises questions in my mind," said Lunsford.

U.S. Reps. Charlie Wilson (D-St. Clairsville), Zack Space (D-Dover) and Bob Latta (R-Bowling Green) spoke about their votes on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act Friday afternoon.

Wilson and Space each voted for the revised version of the bill that was approved by the Senate, while Latta voted against it, each of their votes remained unchanged from the first vote by the Senate revisions.

Space said that he supported the bill to protect against a financial meltdown.

"Today, I voted to protect the taxpayers of Ohio from economic collapse," Space said. "Without this rescue package, we could have seen an economic disaster on the scale of the Great Depression."

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Louisville) confirmed reports that he was prepared to vote in favor of the financial rescue package coming before the House today, and he tried to swing some of the credit to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom he said had been instrumental in swaying his vote and others for the bailout.

“[Obama has] been very, very active in talking to the people who voted no and explained why he’s taken the position that he has,” Yarmuth said in an interview outside the Capitol.

Yarmuth, a freshman congressman who supported Obama in the primaries, said the Illinois lawmaker had been engaging in private conversations with Democratic members, reassuring them that his White House would work closely with Congress on the future steps needed to address the financial crisis.

State Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Price Hill) pressured U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Westwood) to speak out on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act on Wednesday, following an article in the Washington Post that said Chabot's vote against the Act "injected an enormous element of uncertainty into his reelection bid."

Driehaus hit Chabot for declining to be interviewed by the Post on the subject and accused Chabot of inaction.

"Steve Chabot has good reason to hide from his record on addressing the foreclosure crisis in Cincinnati:  it's abysmal," said Driehaus campaign manager Melissa Wideman.  "While Steve Driehaus has been fighting in the state legislature to ease the mortgage crisis, Steve Chabot has been silent on this issue and, once again, failed to lead."

Chabot had his say Thursday afternoon on a conference call with reporters.

Chabot joined Mike Calhoun, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Center for Responsible Lending, and Wade Henderson, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights to discuss "the reason why so many members of Congress have pushed to include the bankruptcy provisions and why we must do so going forward."

U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Fort Morgan) voted against the $700 billion bailout of the nation's financial industries Monday and pushed for a new bill that includes more financial reform and taxpayer safeguards.In a statement released by her campaign, Musgrave said she wanted to see "a workout, not a bailout" of a bill that includes restructuring troubled mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, changes accounting rules to more accurately reflect companies' earnings, and guarantees that taxpayer bailout money would be repaid.

WASHINGTON – As the newspaper headlines change, so do political advertisements. The conservative advocacy organization Freedom’s Watch, which launched a nearly $700,000 television advertising buy in Colorado’s hotly contested Senate race last week focusing on national security, is throwing a new ad into its Colorado rotation with a more economic-oriented message. The 30-second ad, “Hey Elk,” takes aim at Democratic candidate Mark Udall for supposedly voting in favor of a $10 million earmark for an elk bridge.

As the U.S. House considered -- and ultimately voted down -- a $700 billion package to help the nation's struggling financial sector, lawmakers on Capitol Hill and political candidates coast to coast weighed in. What follows is a complete listing of stories from across the Politicker network on Monday's economic turmoil.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) bucked his constituents Monday by voting for a $700 billion economic bailout plan,saying in a statement that he was worried many people "would pay the price for the excesses of others."

Tancredo was the only one among Colorado's three Republican members of Congress to vote for the bill. Democrats Ed Perlmutter (D-Golden) and Diana DeGette (D-Denver) also voted "aye."