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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2013 6:46 pm Post subject: What you should know about Kamala Harris |
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Kamala Harris�s success rests in part on her insistence that the housing bust was criminal in nature
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She has redefined what was at first seen as an impersonal economic disaster, persuading law enforcement organizations and lawmakers that the crash was the product of deliberate choices and stupendously widespread white-collar crime. She says she wants to bring the �passion of the streets to the courtroom.�
it was Harris, undoubtedly the woman the banks fear most, who pushed the hardest, and the most successfully, for an expanded settlement. She wanted more money for her state�not just a ballpark estimate but a guaranteed minimum of $12 billion. She wanted homeowners who got settlement money to retain the right to sue banks. And she wanted her investigative team to retain the power to go after banks in California courts in years to come.
Last September, Harris flew to Washington to meet with the banks' chief counsels, as well as a slew of top Wall Street attorneys and a few other state attorneys general, in the plush offices of the Debevoise & Plimpton law firm. She had been asked to the meeting to address concerns she had raised in larger meetings with federal and state officials.
According to people at the meeting, the negotiators across the table regarded Harris as young and inexperienced (she was 46); they figured she�d be a pushover. The banks tried to bully her into accepting their terms, including their wholesale release from liability. �It was a pretty contentious meeting,� one participant recalled. �There was some yelling from the bankers� side of the table.� After forty-five minutes, Harris told the banks she wasn�t budging, and the gathering broke up.
On September 30, dissatisfied with the banks� reticence on improving their terms, she sent a letter to Thomas Perrelli, US associate attorney general, and to Tom Miller, Iowa attorney general, who was coordinating state-level responses during the negotiations. �With 2.2 million California homeowners underwater on their mortgages�and a troubling surge in foreclosures in my state over the last two months�I am writing to communicate my decision that my office will now devote its resources to establishing an independent path forward to resolution,� she wrote.
Within a short period Harris�s office had assembled a crack task force of approximately fifty attorneys and investigators to look into banking industry malfeasance. She began convening conference calls at all hours of the day and night�some participants recall 4 AM strategy sessions�and playing all the angles in her office�s dealings with the banks.
By preparing to move forward with or without federal blessing, Harris made herself a nuisance to the feds and to the many state attorneys general looking for a quick and easy settlement. Ultimately the Justice Department�s negotiators urged the banks to accede to her demands so that California would not walk out of the talks, a move that would have caused the entire agreement to disintegrate.
�They didn�t believe she would stick to her guns,� recalls Michael Troncoso, Harris�s senior counsel and principal policy adviser. They thought that if they offered her a few symbolic carrots she would be satisfied. But she wasn�t interested in cover.� The negotiations, he continued, became a matter of �fist and knuckle, tooth and nail. It was brutal.� In the six months of ever more intense negotiations that followed that meeting, Harris didn�t blink. Several times her team was convinced the negotiations would collapse.
The banks finally caved in February, giving in to almost all Harris�s demands. Her playing hardball secured about $18 billion in relief for California homeowners, many times the initial offer and a larger amount than the baseline guarantees she had been seeking months earlier. The deal created a framework for carefully delineated reductions in the mortgage principal owed by underwater borrowers�a template applied to homeowners in Nevada and Florida, two other particularly hard-hit states. And, crucially, it resulted in a settlement that reserved for California and other states the right to launch their own investigations, to set up their own legal claims against the banks and to push for state regulations regarding the foreclosure process. |
The national mortgage settlement was a disappointment, but Kamala Harris is responsible for everything meaningful about it. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2013 5:41 am Post subject: |
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Her sister is my mom's next door neighbor. Fun, useless fact of the day.
Anyway, Kamela might be fighting the good fight, but she wasn't a very effective DA in SF and that office was a mess when she was running it. Hope she's been more effective as California's AG. Perhaps she'd be a good pick to replace Holder? |
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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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| She wanted homeowners who got settlement money to retain the right to sue banks. |
Kuros, do you mind expanding on this little bit? What precedent exists for something like this, accepting a settlement but later being able to seek more? Is there an assumption in this instance that the original settlement was forced? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 3:28 pm Post subject: |
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| geldedgoat wrote: |
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| She wanted homeowners who got settlement money to retain the right to sue banks. |
Kuros, do you mind expanding on this little bit? What precedent exists for something like this, accepting a settlement but later being able to seek more? Is there an assumption in this instance that the original settlement was forced? |
The 49 attorney generals brought suit on behalf of their constituents. Thus, it was a public right of action. Each individual homeowner also has a private right of action. The Obama administration's settlement proposal was extremely favorable to the banks. They proposed that as part of the settlement, the attorney generals agree to halt individuals from exercising their private right of action.
As a practical matter, the attorney generals had to bring suit, because its very difficult for individual homeowners to discover whether their documents had been robo-signed. But when homeowners do find out, why would we ever want them to have their right surrendered?
If a bank robo-signed a critical document, such as the endorsement on a note, it could threaten their status as a holder. As a result, the homeowner can win their house and quiet title. This has happened about a hundred times, a few dozen times in Ohio alone.
BTW, I've dealt with the independent foreclosure reviews, and I have no respect, absolutely no respect for what they do. They set up call centers precisely resembling the obstacle course homeowners must navigate with their banks if they fall behind (or it is determined they fall behind) on their payments. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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She's been on the list of rising stars in the Dem Party for a time now. The other day's kerfuffle over Obama's 'by far the best-looking attorney general' comment is a good example of the old Hollywood axiom: "There is no such thing as bad publicity". Her name recognition factor went up a zillion per cent after his comment.
It'll be interesting to see which political office she runs for next. Governor Harris? Senator Harris? Or maybe Hillary Clinton's AG?
Only in her mid-40's, she has 20-30 years to build a political career--if she has the chops. |
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geldedgoat
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2013 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, when I read "settlement" I automatically assumed this was the result of some lawsuit with willing claimants.
Thanks for that. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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Kamala Harris sues JPMorgan Chase over debt-collection practices
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The state is suing JPMorgan Chase for what is says are illegal debt-collection methods against tens of thousands of California credit card consumers.
The suit, filed by Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris is Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday, accuses the company of �frenzied� lawsuit filings against people who fell behind on their loan repayments in California -- more than 100,000 between January 2008 and April 2011.
�To maintain this breakneck pace, [the company has] employed unlawful practices as shortcuts to obtain judgments against Californian consumers with the speed and ease that could not have been possible if [it)]had adhered to the minimum substantive and procedural protections required by law.�
The suit focuses on the company�s alleged use of �robo-signing� legal documents �without any knowledge of the facts alleged in the document and without regard to the truth and accuracy of those facts.� |
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