Robofiling gets sued

More than the Nevada attorney general's lawsuit a few weeks ago, which indicted two people for robo-signing, the rubber is now really hitting the road.

Massachusetts AG Martha Coakley has sued not only five lenders, but MERS, the robo-signing agency for all the big lenders. And, on expected grounds: MERS violates state law on paper trails for mortgages and related issues. 


And, there's bigger issues yet behind all of this:

Officials at all of the banks issued statements saying they would fight the suit. Most of them also indicated dismay that Massachusetts had taken action during negotiations to reach a settlement over the types of practices highlighted in the case.

“We are disappointed that Massachusetts would take this action now,” said Tom Kelly, a Chase spokesman, “when negotiations are ongoing with the attorneys general and the federal government on a broader settlement that could bring immediate relief to Massachusetts borrowers rather than years of contested legal proceedings.”

Lawrence Grayson, a Bank of America spokesman, said: “We continue to believe that collaborative resolution rather than continued litigation will most quickly heal the housing market and help drive economic recovery.”

And Vickee Adams of Wells Fargo said, “Regrettably, the action announced in Massachusetts today will do little to help Massachusetts homeowners or the recovery of the housing economy in the Commonwealth.”

But as Ms. Coakley made clear during the news conference, her office had come to view as unacceptable the negotiating stance taken by the banks in the protracted settlement talks.

“When those negotiations began over a year ago, I was hopeful that we would be able to reach a strong and effective solution,” she said. “It is over a year later and I believe the banks have failed to offer meaningful relief to homeowners.” 

So, now, the first AG, more than in Nevada, is breaking ranks from settlement talks. It's clear banks are hoping two things:
1. Campaign cash for Obama (or Romney, or both) and high-dollar-level electoral politics, will get the feds to push harder on a mortgage issues settlement that favors big and predatory lenders.
2. They can run out the clock on some things, on statutes of limitations, and probably "scrub up and clean up" on others.

And, even if Coakley ran a lame Senate campaign in 2010, she now has become, for now, at least, the biggest political player in 2012.

Read and parse carefully words by Obama substitutes on this issue, including which substitutes he chooses before speaking himself.

Meanwhile, we've had the first fallout. GMAC is abandoning any new MERS-based mortgages in the state and other "brokered" mortgages, which Massachusetts (rightly) calls an admission.

Healthcare change is working on Bay State

A Boston Globe editorial has the statement and the details behind the claim. I think they’re reasonably right, but the state will have tougher choices in the future, just like when Bill Clinton’s “welfare reform” punted some tough issues down the road.

And, a “public option” would be a tool to help with those tough choices, but, you can’t expect something like that to be done on a state-by-state basis. Southern states would, again, engage in a race to the bottom, which is exactly why Southern Senators promote, if anything concrete, a “federalized” healthcare “reform” plan.

Massachusetts, beyond not wanting to have a state-based “public option,” also benefits from a low rate of uninsureds as a starting point, and also, surely, from a stronger state regulatory climate than a place like here in Tejas.

Massachusetts sues feds over DOMA – OK not great

YES! Much better than the California lesbian couple who didn’t get married before Proposition 8 was upheld by the California Supreme Court, a Commonwealth of Massachusetts suit against the Defense of Marriage Act is likely to get legal standing.

The lawsuit argues that the DOMA, which was enacted in 1996, precludes same-sex spouses in Massachusetts from a wide range of protections, including federal income tax credits, employment and retirement benefits, health insurance coverage, and Social Security payments.

Federal courts who are not too reticent about refusing to give individual civil plaintiffs standing aren’t likely to bump a state on a constitutional issue.

BUT… but… but…

There’s a downside. Massachusetts is deliberately avoiding raising the “full faith and credit clause” of the U.S. Constitution in challenging DOMA:

The lawsuit questions the constitutionality of Section 3 of the law, which defines the word "marriage" for the purpose of federal law as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife." It does not challenge the constitutionality of Section 2, which provides that states are not required to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Instead, the challenge is only to the conservative-beloved 10th Amendment.

Read, definitely read, the whole thing. See if you think it’s the right, narrowly-phrased, legal strategy and whether it stands a chance at the Supreme Court.

My angle is that if SCOTUS wants to slap down the state of Massachusetts on this issue, it will find a way to do so, no matter how narrowly tailored the suit is. And, the suit, if won, would theoretically apply only in Massachusetts, and not guarantee people married in Massachusetts would be considered married if they moved elsewhere.

What’s Portuguese for SCAT?

Here’s the first of not one but TWO Friday scatblogging posts for this week.

As to that question? Well, in Somerville, Mass., Brazil@SCAT is all about the movies. SCAT? That's Somerville Community Access Television.

Massachusetts faces harder choices on public healthcare

Can the Bay State and Gov. Deval Patrick really rein in healthcare costs?

The Democratic legislature and GOP Gov. Mitt Romney punted tough choices down the road when they adopted, at the state level, the first American attempt at “national” healthcare.

Will avoiding fee-for-service payment to doctors help enough? Or even more emphasis on wellness? Or is it time to regulate hospitals and clinics away from buying ever-greater amounts of ever-more-expensive diagnostic equipment and such?

In other words, is the time for what wingers call “rationing” here?

Time for Texas gay couples to plan a trip to Massachusetts

Those that want to be married, that is!

The Bay State is primed to trash its 1913 law restricting marriage in that state to Massachusetts couples, or two other couples on the condition they could only get married by the law of their home state.

The archaic law, originally used to keep Southerners of different ethnicity from getting around anti-miscegenation laws down South, was pretty much ignored in recent years until in 2006, when then-Gov. Mitt Romney ordered it enforced after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled the state’s gay marriage ban unconstitutional.

The state House has repealed the law and the Senate is expected to follow. Gov. Deval Patrick is expected to sign, for two reasons.

One, he’s African-American, and anybody in Massachusetts this side of the Religious Right acknowledges the racist background of the law.

Two, his daughter is out of the closet as a lesbian.

Assuming passage, the “full faith and credit” law of the Constitution is going to hit the fan.

I guess we’ll see in 2-3 years, maybe less, just how fucking hypocritical Nino Scalia will try to be with “originalism.”