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A new collection of original short
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The intrigue, the corruption, the
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CUT ME IN is a series of riveting stories
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characters - mobsters, fringe players,
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petty thieves - with dark agendas who
betray their honor, and the public's
trust, on a dime's turn; at times
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gritty of a blue-collar immigrant town
in the shadows of the big city, a town
of second chancers, forgotten and
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tales with no moral lessons to
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dealings with the help of one lone hero,
Chucho* and his beloved low-rider.

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A courageously innovative, muckraking web site that focuses like a laser on the political, financial and legal shenanigans of the local government
California First Amendment Coalition

Monday, October 20, 2008

A Hot Latina
Rosario Marin, now state consumer services secretary in California, was paid by
Republican consultant firm DCI to travel, lobby and actively advocate against regulation
of giant mortgage finance company. Lack of regulation contributed to financial melt-
down.
Rosario Marin, a Paid Consultant of Stealth
Campaign Killing Legislation to Regulate
Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae in 2005
The Editor, WatchOurCity.com, Oct. 20, 2008

Huntington Park, CA - The Associated Press on Sunday reports that in 2005 the
giant mortgage finance company "Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican
consulting firm [DCI] $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and
trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three
years before the government took control to prevent their collapse."

The stealth campaign paid for by Freddie Mac was aimed at stopping proposed
legislation sponsored by U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb). DCI is a well known
Republican consulting firm and in this case was paid for the campaign aimed at
stopping leading Republicans in the U.S. Senate who, through the proposed
regulations, if passed, may have averted the financial melt-down.

Playing a starring role in the midst of all this was Huntington Park's illustrious
councilwoman, Rosario Marin, who has a colorful history of corruption in her
home town.

"Rosario Marin, a staunch McCain supporter who spoke at the GOP convention in
September, was among the people DCI used in carrying out the campaign."

"If effective regulatory reform legislation ... is not enacted this year [2005],
American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial
system and the economy as a whole," the senators wrote in a letter that
proved prescient."

In February of 2006, Rosario Marin was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger
to head the state's Consumer Affairs Services Division, a state cabinet-level
post. Marin had no qualifications other than being a Republican party aparatchik.
The historic appointment was made in the council chambers of the city of
Huntington Park. Just days before, WatchOurCity.com broke a story that was
then picked up by the Spanish Daily La Opinion Newspaper where it was
revealed that Marin's favorite political protege in Huntington Park, mayor
Edward Escareno, was convicted of "Grand Theft" of public funds, a felony. The
more astounding part of the story was the cover-up of this conviction by the
District Attorney's office. The Wikipedia citation of Rosario Marin makes note of
this incident under "Scandal", which Marin tried unsuccessfully removing from
Wikipedia. Wikipedia states "WatchOurCity.com, broke a story in mid-January
2006 about the fact that Edward Escareno was quietly prosecuted by the Los
Angeles County District Attorney's office and convicted in Los Angeles County
Superior court on December 20, 2005 for "Grand Theft", a felony.[6] According to
subsequent media reports in the Spanish daily newspaper La Opinion[7], the
conviction was evidently kept a secret by both the Huntington Park city council
and by the District Attorney's office in order to protect Rosario Marin's public
image, as she is closely associated with Escareno, her protégé."

Since March 2004, WatchOurcity.com has been reporting on Rosario Marin's
political activities right here in Huntington Park, California, where she still lives.
Marin's political proteges still control Huntington Park city hall and the multi-
million contracts and gifts of public funds worth half a million dollars that are
given out exclusively to Rosario Marin's friends. These friends include the city
attorney Francisco Leal, city of Bell ex-council member George Cole, Fiesta Taxi,
META 2000's Vicente Ortiz, and sundry other of Marin's friends.

In 2008, the U.S. Government takes over the failed finance giants after their
near total financial collapse.

The AP report goes on to say that "Marin, the U.S. treasurer during the first term
of the Bush administration, went to Missouri and to Montana, Burns' state,
where she spoke out against Hagel's bill. At the time, Burns, who ended up
losing his re-election bid, was caught up in a Washington influence peddling
scandal centering on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"Marin's visit triggered a local newspaper story in which the reporter contacted
Burns' staff for comment. Burns' office told the newspaper the senator was not
supportive of the latest version of Hagel's bill."

"On Wednesday, Marin, now state consumer services secretary in California,
issued a statement confirming that her trips to Missouri and Montana were in
her capacity as a DCI consultant."

Rosario Marin is touted as one of the most prominent Latinas in the U.S.

In 2002, Rosario Marin resigned her city council position in Huntington Park
because President Bush, in his first term, appointed her the 41st U.S. Treasurer.
It's like Sara Palin going from Wasilla to Washington.

See following Associated Press report, or click here for link to AP's website.
______________________________________________

By PETE YOST,
Associated Press Writer, Sun Oct 19, 5:46 pm ET
Mortgage firm arranged stealth
campaign

WASHINGTON – Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill
legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its
sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent
their collapse.

In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican
senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. DCI's chief
executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain's campaign later hired to manage the
GOP convention in September.

Freddie Mac's payments to DCI began shortly after the Senate Banking, Housing and
Urban Affairs Committee sent Hagel's bill to the then GOP-run Senate on July 28, 2005. All
GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it.

In the midst of DCI's yearlong effort, Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded
unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote.

"If effective regulatory reform legislation ... is not enacted this year, American taxpayers
will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to
the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole," the
senators wrote in a letter that proved prescient.

Unknown to the senators, DCI was undermining support for the bill in a campaign
targeting 17 Republican senators in 13 states, according to documents obtained by The
Associated Press. The states and the senators targeted changed over time, but always
stayed on the Republican side.

In the end, there was not enough Republican support for Hagel's bill to warrant bringing it
up for a vote because Democrats also opposed it and the votes of some would be needed
for passage. The measure died at the end of the 109th Congress.

McCain, R-Ariz., was not a target of the DCI campaign. He signed Hagel's letter and three
weeks later signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.

By the time McCain did so, however, DCI's effort had gone on for nine months and was on
its way toward killing the bill.

In recent days, McCain has said Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were "one of the real
catalysts, really the match that lit this fire" of the global credit crisis. McCain has accused
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of taking advice from former executives
of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and failing to see that the companies were heading for a
meltdown.

McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, or his lobbying firm has taken more than $2
million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dating to 2000. In December, Freddie Mac
contributed $250,000 to last month's GOP convention.

Obama has received $120,349 in political donations from employees of Freddie Mac and
Fannie Mae; McCain $21,550.

The Republican senators targeted by DCI began hearing from prominent constituents and
financial contributors, all urging the defeat of Hagel's bill because it might harm the
housing boom. The effort generated newspaper articles and radio and TV appearances by
participants who spoke out against the measure.

Inside Freddie Mac headquarters in 2005, the few dozen people who knew what DCI was
doing referred to the initiative as "the stealth lobbying campaign," according to three
people familiar with the drive.

They spoke only on condition of anonymity, saying they fear retaliation if their names
were disclosed.

Freddie Mac executive Hollis McLoughlin oversaw DCI's drive, according to the three people.

"Hollis's goal was not to have any Freddie Mac fingerprints on this project and DCI became
the hidden hand behind the effort," one of the three people told the AP.

Before 2004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were Democratic strongholds. After 2004,
Republicans ran their political operations. McLoughlin, who joined Freddie Mac in 2004 as
chief of staff, has given $32,250 to Republican candidates over the years, including
$2,800 to McCain, and has given none to Democrats, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.

On Friday night, Hagel's chief of staff, Mike Buttry, said Hagel's legislation "was the last
best chance to bring greater oversight and tighter regulation to Freddie and Fannie, and
they used every means they could to defeat Sen. Hagel's legislation every step of the
way."

"It is outrageous that a congressionally chartered government-sponsored enterprise would
lobby against a member of Congress's bill that would strengthen the regulation and
oversight of that institution," Buttry said in a statement. "America has paid an extremely
high price for the reckless, and possibly criminal, actions of the leadership at Freddie and
Fannie."

Nine of the 17 targeted Republican senators did not sign Hagel's letter: Sens. Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky, Christopher "Kit" Bond and Jim Talent of Missouri, Conrad Burns of
Montana, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Olympia Snowe of Maine,
Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and George Allen of Virginia. Aside from the nine, 20 other
Republican senators did not sign Hagel's letter.

McConnell's office said members of leadership do not sign letters to the leader. McConnell
was majority whip at the time.

Eight of the targeted senators did sign it: Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike
Crapo of Idaho, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Larry Craig of Idaho, John Ensign of Nevada,
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, George Voinovich of Ohio and David Vitter of Louisiana.
Santorum, Crapo and Bunning were on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Committee and had voted in favor of sending the bill to the full Senate.

On Thursday, Freddie Mac acknowledged that the company "did retain DCI to provide
public affairs support at the state and local level." On Friday, DCI issued a four-sentence
statement saying it complied with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations in
representing Freddie Mac. Neither Freddie Mac nor DCI would say how much Goodyear's
consulting firm was paid.

Freddie Mac paid DCI $10,000 a month for each of the targeted states, so the more
states, the more money for DCI, according to the three people familiar with the program.
In addition, Freddie Mac paid DCI a group retainer of $40,000 a month plus $20,000 a
month for each regional manager handling the project, the three people said.

Last month, the concerns of the 26 Republican senators who signed Hagel's bill became a
reality when the government seized control of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae amid their near
financial collapse. Federal prosecutors are investigating accounting, disclosure and
corporate governance issues at both companies, which own or guarantee more than $5
trillion in mortgages, roughly equivalent to half of the national debt.

Freddie Mac was so pleased with DCI's work that it retained the firm for other jobs, finally
cutting DCI loose last month after the government takeover, according to the three people
familiar with the situation.

Freddie Mac's problems began when Hagel's legislation won approval from the Senate
committee.

Democrats did not like the harshest provision, which would have given a new regulator a
mandate to shrink Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae by forcing them to sell off part of their
portfolios. That approach, the Democrats feared, would cut into the ability of low- and
moderate-income families to buy houses.

The political backdrop to the debate "was like bizarre-o-world," said the second of three
people familiar with the program. "The Republicans were pro-regulation and the Democrats
were against it; it was upside down."

Sen. Richard Shelby, the committee chairman at the time, underscored that in a statement
Wednesday, saying that with Democrats already on their side, it was not surprising that
Freddie Mac and Freddie Mae went after Republicans. "Unfortunately," said Shelby, R-Ala.,
"efforts then to derail reform were successful."

In a sign of bad things to come, Freddie Mac was already having serious problems in
2005. Auditors had exposed massive accounting issues, so improved regulation was one
obvious remedy.

Once Freddie Mac's in-house lobbyists failed to keep Hagel's bill bottled up in the
committee, McLoughlin responded by secretly hiring DCI.

DCI never filed lobbying reports with Congress about what it was doing because the firm
was relying on a long-recognized gap in the disclosure law.

Federal lobbying law only requires reporting and registration when there are contacts with a
legislator or staff.

"To have it stealthy, not to let people know who is behind this, in my opinion is unethical,"
said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at
American University who long has taught courses about lobbying.

Goodyear is a longtime political consultant from Arizona who resigned from the Republican
convention job this year after Newsweek magazine revealed he had lobbied for the
repressive military junta of Myanmar.

McLoughlin, Freddie Mac's senior vice president for external relations, was assistant
treasury secretary from 1989 through 1992 in the administration of President Bush's
father. McLoughlin served as chief of staff to Sen. Nicholas Brady, R-N.J., in 1982 and to
Rep. Millicent Fenwick, R-N.J., from 1975-79.

Seven of the 17 targeted Republican senators were in the midst of re-election campaigns
in 2006, and according to one of the three people familiar with the program, Freddie Mac
and DCI hoped those facing tough races would tell their Republican colleagues back in
Washington that "we've got enough trouble; you're making it worse with Hagel's bill."

Five of the seven DCI targets who ran for re-election in 2006 lost, and Senate control
switched to the Democrats.

A Freddie Mac e-mail on May 4, 2006 — the day before Hagel's letter — details the behind-
the-scenes effort that Freddie Mac and DCI generated to hold down the number of
Republicans signing Hagel's letter urging a full Senate vote. It said:

"What I'm asking is that DCI get a few of their key well-connected constituents from each
state to call in to the DC office of their Republican senators and speak to the (legislative
director) or (chief of staff) and urge them not to sign the letter. The following could be
used as a short script."

The proposed script read: "We can all agree that Fannie's and Freddie's regulator should
be strengthened but unfortunately, S.190 goes too far and could potentially have
damaging effects on Georgia's — example — home buyers."

According to the third of the three people familiar with the program, "DCI was asked to
help keep senators from signing; it was a big part of their effort that year and it was
viewed as a success since many DCI targets did not sign the letter."

DCI's progress after the first four months of the campaign was spelled out in a 19-page
document dated Dec. 12, 2005, and titled, "Freddie Mac Field Program State by State
Summary Report."

A snippet of a senator-by-senator breakdown of the efforts says this about Maine's Snowe:

"Philip Harriman, former state senator, co-chair of Snowe's 2006 campaign, personal
Snowe friend, major GOP donor and investment adviser, has written the senator a personal
letter on this issue. Dick Morin, vice president Maine Association of Mortgage Brokers, has
been in direct contact with Sen. Snowe's committee staff, has sent a letter to Snowe, and is
pursuing a dozen(s) of letters from his members."

On Wednesday, Snowe's office issued a statement saying that she "literally gets hundreds
of 'Dear Colleague' letters seeking support for their positions that she does not sign. Had
this legislation come up for a vote in 2006, she certainly would have considered it on its
merits — as she does every vote. Just last July, she voted for the housing bill that
established a new, stronger regulator."

Rosario Marin, a staunch McCain supporter who spoke at the GOP convention in
September, was among the people DCI used in carrying out the campaign.

Marin, the U.S. treasurer during the first term of the Bush administration, went to Missouri
and to Montana, Burns' state, where she spoke out against Hagel's bill.

At the time, Burns, who ended up losing his re-election bid, was caught up in a
Washington influence peddling scandal centering on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Marin's visit triggered a local newspaper story in which the reporter contacted Burns' staff
for comment. Burns' office told the newspaper the senator was not supportive of the latest
version of Hagel's bill.

On Wednesday, Marin, now state consumer services secretary in California, issued a
statement confirming that her trips to Missouri and Montana were in her capacity as a DCI
consultant.

The December 2005 summary listing 17 Republican targets outlines the inroads DCI was
making.

"On day one" of the effort, Sen. George Allen of Virginia had not addressed Hagel's bill
and his legislative aide for housing was not assigned to it, the report said.

"Today," the report added, "the senator is aware of the issue and ... at the moment he is
undecided." Allen's deputy chief of staff "has said that the senator will take into
consideration before he decides that Freddie Mac is located in Virginia and is one of the
largest Virginia employers."

"Grasstops/opinion leaders James Todd, president, the Peterson Companies wrote to both
senators," the report added. "Milt Peterson, the founder and CEO of the company is one of
Allen's major donors."

In the end, Allen, who lost his bid for re-election in 2006, did not sign Hagel's letter.

Courtesy Associated Press