ten o'clock it will continue on until after ten o'clock i assume there will be we will be in compliance with that rule that says you can keep open of all calls for the purpose of letting people vote so if we do start of all call we will we will continue it as long as we have votes and it is our expectation that we will finish tomorrow with all calls and maybe if there are a couple of pending amendments so we we will break for the prime minister  ireland at ten forty let me invite now any amendments that anyone has i would note in the markup on the purchased a foreclosed property we adopted five amendments that have been offered by the minority so far in this bill we've also adopted five i've been shown some drafts of amendments that seem to me in my tree to be accepted so if anyone has any they'd like to submit we could do that during that break for the primary to general go you have a question if i made at the as i recall the assist me and understand how we're going to proceed yes that that's the roll call that i was assuming could happen that's the only one that's pending because we dispose of all the other pending a member vocals so to my intention to put that we consideration in motion to a vote break from about a quarter of until about twelve and it seems to me we could probably agree on a number of amendments as i've said so far in this markup on these related bills we've adopted a number and stand from the public inside a the democratic side and i would hope we could we could accommodate a lot because i have seen a number of amendments that seem to be adoptable and then we could focus on those areas where there were disagreements with that i'm going to move to put to the question so we won't start you will call right away i would start to walk on about ten minutes and perhaps we could do some non controversial members until the end so we can then start the roll call and hold it up until about five after ten or whatever is necessary there any other amendments that we can consider while we are awaiting the beginning of that  and then an h r fifty eight thirty offered by mr meeks of new york at the end of the bill that the members be considered as you read the gentleman will proceed i believe this is a non controversial member the young new york will proceed prospective first time home buyers seeking mortgages it is an amendment that you know there are certain communities that were affected by the subprime mortgage more than others and it has and can have damaging effects to other individuals in those communities when they are trying to obtain a mortgage and so we're just asking the g a o to the comptroller the general of the united states to conduct a study to add ally's the tightening a lot of individuals now first time homeowners are trying to purchase homes but they can't and we just want to know what the effect there because of the tightening credit crises is the negative effect what are we still allowing individuals who may be still wanting to join in the american dream of homeownership is this having an effect will it decline will they not be able to approach is homes and the future and we want  the the the comptroller general to look at this to get some numbers and these communities that have been affected substantially because of the tightening credit crises that's going on and how it may affect first time  home and i think that we just need to know what effect this is having at all and so i'm asking the g a o to to look into it to give us some numbers so that we can make sure that as we make decisions on this committee we could be making it based upon got to offer i think mr meeks is on to something here i think it's very important that we take this crisis as a learning experience as an opportunity to learn from it and or to do that we need to study it we need to also get to the bottom of this and one of the ways we get to the bottom of it is to recognize one of the fault lines and that is financial literacy and education if we had that in the first place if so many of these folks were literate and educated how to make these crucial financial decisions we wouldn't be in the shape that we're and so i commend the gentleman from new york mr makes the aspirant for the question now is on the amendment offered by the general from new york those who pay will say i oppose no the amendment is adopted we will now put you into i you know i'm scared sent proceed to the question of reconsideration let me explain procedure we first must vote on reconsideration if we consideration is adopted the amendment that we voted roll call on that amendment again as i am sure that will be and any amendments to the amendments i know that don't texas had one those will be put to the end in a regular order and i was the only the only motion that we have to dispose of now is whether or not we reconsider if we reconsider that will then be before us and it will be debated like any other amendment it was debated now and a roll calls are required on the crime amendment only secondary members will be deferred so the question is now we are now ready to proceed to the to the wouldn't want individuals to to state that they indeed believe this ought to be reconsidered there was a pretty solid vote last week on the on this amendment and as i recall it was a bipartisan in opposition to the amendment and have not i haven't seen any other proposal as an alternative that would be coming forward for the committee with a gentleman yield to or i'm over here the other gentleman from georgia what about there are enough votes to pass the motion for reconsideration things have been worked out on this side so it would be kind of a meaningless gesture at this point no point going through it when i have a brief i was those i will generally kneel to make shapes that comment i will in just a moment but i but i don't know laney's been working on this side i mean i know that there's been a lot of discussion on the other side i haven't seen any new language it's not clear to me why i would i may want to reconsider it well first of all in this markup so far in the marker of these two related bills the ten amendments have been adopted that were offered by the minority to respond to that comment about our not working with the other side and we made an order non germane substitute to accommodate the minority my staff i asked them to please try to get amendments that people were thinking about they told me yesterday they hadn't gotten many that were offered again this meeting by announcing that during the break for the speech by the prime minister i hope members on both sides would submit amendments to each other so we could work them out so i have to reject the gentleman's notion that we don't try to work together i made an invitation for him it will see how many i get but we have so far adopted ten so many moderate  and i'd be pleased to have the chairman again if he can let me know what what has been worked out on the amendment by the challenge from north carolina that would i would be cause us to to reconsider his motion what i understand is that there will be a  number let me say first of all well the gentleman said well people should have to say what they do they will when we vote this is not something that's going to be adopted after reconsideration by a voice vote there will be a debate members will be able to debate it and it will be clear and they will act a vote on that because it will be another  there's an adjustment in the number and include some language that the funding goes through what i don't think the dome georgia probably would be agreeable to it but the point about members having to stand up on this they will have to do that ultimately because i've devoted part of the general want to welcome we can overrule calls so plan my time with the chairman be willing to share the language that's been worked out prior to the vote on reconsideration so that when they fall it may have the same information before making a what the gentleman from georgia yield to the gentleman for college from colorado out of a happy deal thank you the amendment is very short and to the point it basically reduces the amount of money that would be available from forty million to thirty five million and it adds counseling intermediaries and it requires that all of this go through hud the department of hud for the purpose of making the grants very clear in my so and you may it doesn't appear i've just been handed this matter but it doesn't appear that it's changed anything as it relates to allowing money to flow directly to attorneys is that is that still what i'm going to say this is the general want to object you kids but we are going to hold this roll call open now until the republican members return from their conference and one to two of our strays wondering so the committee will now continue with the roll call process noting that the purpose for this prolonged roll call is solely to accommodate members who haven't yet been able to vote and we began it we had this problem with votes in committee and we tried to accommodate the most number members  something stick in my memory the gentlewoman from new york general in california the general in north carolina mr jones five minutes remaining in the will call the other members in the whom we should be recorded the time for voting has expired i am informed that we are not aware of anyone who is on route so if there are no other members who wish to be recorded the clerk will report the tally in that case reconsideration has prevailed pending business is now the amendment of the gentleman from north carolina the gentleman is recognize the gentleman colorado is recognized yes mr chairman i have an amendment to the amendment at the desk short the general colorado was now recognized for five minutes on his secondary amendment thank you this amendment from texas is it possible we could get a copy because this refers to the original amendment can we get a copy of the original that's a reasonable request much distribute let's hold off a minute and distribute the original amendment as well and in fact that was an error it could have been distributed because it is a pending business and the gentleman texas is correct to request it the gentleman colorado is now recognized for five minutes thank you mr chairman this amendment to mr watts amendment is pretty straightforward it does two things it reduces the grant monies from forty million to thirty five million and it adds counseling intermediaries that have been approved by the department of housing and urban development as one of the groups that can receive a grant and with that i would yield to my friend from north carolina if he has any remarks about this thank the gentleman for yielding i i would just say that this whole process has served a very important purpose both in terms of the substance of the amendment and in terms of furthering communication because i think perhaps the most important purpose that was served by the delay was to  reassure the lending community that this was not designed to to be abusive to them nor was it designed to encourage litigation permit class suits or anything of the kind gave them an opportunity to look at the language and once they looked at the language it it was obvious that none of that was contemplated in the first place and it gave us an opportunity to go back and do something that that everybody thought was important which was allow money to flow to counseling in a media who are out there doing counseling so that they could engage the legal services that if legal services were needed a d so this is this is served an important purpose the reduction from forty million to thirty five million dollars really while important to some people really doesn't have a lot of implication in the sense that this is not an appropriation anyway this has to go through the appropriations process it has to go through the  that's not a call that we can make in this committee as a final proposition anyway so i think this is a good amendment from everybody's perspective perhaps the most important thing is is opened up lines of communication and everybody's been reassured that even if we have not gotten everywhere we need to be we can continue to work on and that there will be a texas i think the chairman appreciate the gentleman from colorado bringing that number down i would point out that this is still a five million dollars increase over the original bill i believe the original text was for thirty million dollars i would also ask the gentleman from colorado i'm looking at the language here and i just heard the to watch say that he felt like this new language made it clear that this was not for class action lawsuits are but i don't see anything in this language that i believe would delimit if the german with you i would field i didn't say there was anything in the amendment with that  issue i think once everybody read the language the language of the original amendment it be claimed clear that class actions were not contemplated by it in the first place by the original language so there was no necessity to address that the chair had already assured everybody on the committee that that was not contemplated the language itself in their original amendment  made it clear that that was not contemplated so there was no need to address it again in the in the amendment to the original amendment that's that's what i said that i didn't well rick reclaiming my time looking at the original amendment and it says provide legal assistance related to home ownership or person to person preservation and home foreclosure prevention and so to me that would be could be construed to be used as a lawsuit  between someone who's getting their house foreclosed on and their lender gentlemen you yes you asked about class action lawsuits there's nothing in an individual foreclosure which is what this contemplates legal assistance related to that allows a class action lawsuit entirely restricted to individual foreclosures individual homeowner there's nothing in this bill that would prevent that attorney from saying you know what i think i'm going to go out and solicit other people that have gotten mortgages from x y z because i'm going to use the same argument for  those folks as i'm using for that so i don't see anything in this language that would prevent a lender from forming or i mean from about a lawyer you're putting together a class action the gentleman you yes i think it would do that we'd have to refer it to the judiciary committee anyway all we can do is say what can be done with these funds that's that's that's what this is restricted to the use of these funds i can't i'm a sahm that a lawyer won't go out and be a lawyer and do whatever they do with on their own time or another on other time but i can assure him that they can't use these funds for that purpose funds lawsuits in the class action lawsuits and so if there are some other ideas or thoughts mr chairman on how for this not to do that i would certainly be receptive and with hope the chairman would entertain that i  would let me recognize myself for five minutes to say i would agree in part and disagree in part with the gentleman i don't think we want to say that it can never be used adversarial we frankly we have heard some cases of abuses of people in bankruptcy being hit with to gentleman from colorado will yield for a question i want to make sure i understand this reading the second page line eight the n r c shall give priority consideration to state and local legal organizations and in turn each and then it specifies this so the question i have is what's the more operable phrase for how the money is spent is it going to be spent on legal counseling as a priority or as it says later on that it will be the priority is given to legal organizations and attorneys new to me well if you ask question about the underlying amendment well not i'm out of here as an amendment to the amendment but i'm wondering if if he contemplated that with his amendment because it seems to be fixing the tourney section of it and as an know it i would just answer i think that that an r c priority consideration it is within the legal community to those if you read it it says that those that provide legal assistance in the hundred metropolitan statistical areas and  have the capacity to begin using the financial assistance so that's within the legal community not as a not as it applies to the financial counseling intermediaries there isn't any priority as between those two but within the legal community there is a priority ok that you know it just seemed to me that that your mamet's is somewhat in you know my opinion is someone who's adverse to trial lawyers sort of a fig leaf so that folks can vote for this thing  vote for the underlying amendment and this is a nice cover that it has counseling intermediaries and which i think we all support i mean you know financial counsellors so that's sort of my concern that the underlying amendment still the same inoperable you know in essence functions the same as as it did before but this is a nice cover so you'll back that's my time is amendment that was soundly defeated last week in this committee on a bipartisan basis twenty eight to thirty four and as i'm looking at your amendment i was trying to figure out exactly what it was that that caused members concerns last week with the underlying amendment and i think in trying to line up your amendment with the amendment of the gentleman from north carolina and then the underlying bill that there were some significant current concerns that were addressed and as my recollection  if it's accurate there was concern that on the underlying bill page twenty seven lines twenty three through five it talks about grants to counseling intermediaries approved by the department of housing and urban development and there was some security that individuals that intermediaries who were approved by the by hud had some general expertise in that it wasn't the kind of nebulous language that i think is probably demonstrated in the in the amendment by the gentleman from from north carolina however you or amendment colorado's amendment provides in or your second paragraph begins or to counseling intermediaries so it doesn't require the kind of  approval from hud as the underlying bill did that i think gave members some comfort also there were significant concerns addressed about the increase in money and although yes it's been decrease from forty million to thirty five million the underlying bill is thirty million so this is in fact an increase of about sixteen percent in monies to these these intermediaries and finally the issue of lawsuits i heard the chairman of the general north carolina say that the that legal services would only be used if the counseling intermediaries felt appropriate and that that might give me some comfort as well but i don't see anywhere in the underlying bill or in the amendment by the gentleman from north carolina or in an amendment to that amendment from gem of colorado that stipulation there is no stipulation that the counseling intermediaries would be required to deem that that was appropriate in fact the underlying amendment from north carolina challenge north carolina still has money on line six going directly to attorneys without any any intermediary and so my sense is that the concerns that were addressed last week by the committee and that resulted in in the committee declining to support the amendment by the gentleman from north carolina that those concerns if you have objectively read today by the amendment on the amendment by the gentleman from colorado that they aren't frankly addressed and so i continue to raise those concerns that there is there is through this process there will be millions tens of millions of dollars taxpayer gentleman from north carolina i don't think this does it i don't think this does it i mean in closing let me just say that i appreciate the chairman's comments about going to the floor and opening the process and i hope that's a commitment to an open rule as this bill moves toward the floor we started this term with some open rules by bills that came from this committee and then that that that is kind of gone by the wayside so i would hope that as we move this process forward i have no doubt this is going to pass am happy to work with you and the gentleman from north carolina and the chairman to try and come up with some other language see if there are some things that we can agree on that would in your opinion there are opinion you know assist this bill but i think  raise three points i think the first one though i would disagree with the language is pretty clear that the counseling intermediaries do have to be those that are approved by the department of housing and urban development and and you had some concern that that was not true but i did the language couldn't i don't think be any clearer reclaiming my time if i may i'd be pleased to to to make the first word in your amendment second paragraph and instead of an oar and i think that would address some real concerns  means that it may or may not and and means that it must and so it's if you're if you're truly open to having these intermediaries in the process then and i think what would solve that and i and i would hope that the gentleman might provided for there that no funds provided under this act shall be used to provide obtain all range on behalf of the homeowner legal representation involving or for the purposes of civil litigation the gentleman to instead of solving people's housing problems in fact create a legal climate that becomes much more adversarial the the language in this amendment comes from the senate has already dealt with this issue and this language is taken directly from the senate bill because as they went through their discussion they had members also who were work uncertain about increasing a legal adversarial climate  in the bill did so i would hope that this would address concerns that many of us had about not just class action suits but about having money directly flow from from the taxpayer to the trial bar and that the counseling the legal issue counseling that should appropriately be done would be done for folks who are having difficulty with their mortgages but it would be counseling that would result in solutions so that they may be able to stay in their homes as opposed to counseling that results in litigation i don't think that the american taxpayer is interested in increasing the number of lawsuits that we have in this nation i would suspect that the vast majority of american would contend that that thank you very much we have more than enough lawsuits and so in an effort to try to solve this issue to try to get clarity to the issue to try to allow my friends on the other side who say who state in fact that they they are not interested in increasing the litigation in this area i propose this this positive amendment that was against supported in a markedly bipartisan basis on the senate side and would at once and for all clarify that none of these monies shall be used for the purposes of civil civil litigation i would encourage a yes vote and yield back the balance i recognize myself for five minutes first and most urgently to disclaim the notion that we should be heavily influenced by actions taken by the united states senate they are entitled to their constitutional duties but not more in my judgment and frankly one of the major principles of the united states senate is conflict avoidance in the interest of ever doing anything and the fact that they did something by a bipartisan vote is really not indicative of very much so i admire many of my senate colleagues but at this point i am prepared to give them not much use of this money but this goes beyond it to say no civil litigation the gentleman said we don't want to believe well let me give you an example of civil litigation which this whole thing deals with it's called foreclosure for and we'll be working on some of those letters with you just noted to me the need for us to address some of the abuses that have been brought out perpetrated by some not everybody not the majority but some in this area we have seen the reports of fees that were what you got cheated here you know that money well can you do some but no i can only advise you that you were cheated i can help you get the money back i mean that's the kind of civil litigation we're talking about we're talking about self defense here in many cases so i do agree that we been badly mistreated as we know some individuals have you can't do anything about it and i think that is a grave error so i understand people's concerns about press action the notion that you never would allow important to note here that some of the things the chairman just spoke of the local district attorney or the federal prosecutor the gentleman yield i was about civil litigation the district attorney isn't doing civil litigation that's criminal specifically talk about civil my time i would say that when the general speaking of fraud you know u s attorneys make their career on pursuing that and with a genuine absolute when you're talking though about the right of an individual to a cover that's civil litigation  will be go out there on contingency fees is well known but what i'm what i'm pointing out is that some it doesn't limit that opportunity to pursue fraud in terms of criminal penalties and i think that's an important distinction for janet for pointing that out again as this discussion moves forward in the congress in both chambers both of which have their constitutional responsibility indeed but both obviously put a significant amount of work into the issue of  mortgage foreclosure members of the united states senate had the same kinds of concerns with with this issue as members of the house members of this committee and that is that there might be money flowing directly from the american taxpayer to attorneys in a way that they would with which they would not agree and consequently this four line simple amendment came from members of the united states senate actually the senate from maryland offered the meme of support again by all members on the other side of the aisle and i think it just clarifies what many members say that they want but in fact haven't yet to date put this type of stipulation in in the house house bill you know reclaim my time and i think it's also important in an earlier discussions of this debate that the amount instead of being forty million dollars is reduced to thirty five million dollars as pointed  senate has a similar provision to the tune of thirty million dollars so it is a point of reference here when we're debating an issue and what the senate is doing even when they're acting poorly so with that  bare one of the motives for the underlying bill and the amendment by the gentleman from north carolina and that is the opportunity and the ability to move tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to the trial bar and i think it's very clear we've offered substantive commonsense amendments that would preclude that and and this is one of them and i would hope that my friends on the south have the same kinds of concerns and i know that their constituents have the same kinds of concerns that we have would would except that the other point i would like to make is that the chairman made a comment that this adopting this amendment would make it so that nobody had never allow access to the courts unquote well that's that's simply not true i mean that what this amendment would do would be to preclude the use of this thirty five or forty million dollars of taxpayer money from being able to be utilized to to pad the pockets of the trial lawyers as opposed to  any other sources of revenue from any other source be a private or public so they're all sorts of legal defense funds out there that are pro appropriate and would would be available for this purpose this amendment would do nothing about this and the chairman said it best it is true that either this language or some language similar to it is in the senate bill which was the real problem with the senate language it is true because it gave with one hand and took away completely with this that's the posture that the counselors were in as they were trying to counsel people about how to get out of these terrible mortgages and they were already either in or headed to civil litigation you can't have a foreclosure in north carolina clear absolutely clear as we have said that we have no intention of doing class action litigation using these monies for class action litigation but for us to sit here and and say we are going to allow people to do counseling without giving them any benefit of of allowing the counseling to lead anywhere they get to a point where they they have a legitimate dispute and then they can't go anywhere all they can do is capitulate even when there is a legitimate so if if the gentleman is saying this is different from the senate language he's right i plead guilty to that i don't think we would have started this process if the senate had not overreached by putting this language in their bill because it went too far it went too far a feel good consultation yet i can't do anything beyond that is a disservice to the people that we have sent out there to do counseling i'll be happy to y gentleman texas thank you many of the persons that we will be dealing with will not be the actual property owners but rather will be tenants and they are confronted with terms like forcible detain or forcible entry and detain a ritz a possession a reentry and legal counseling for the tenants who may have their rent paid their risk can be actually paid and they find themselves being evicted because of the foreclosure on the property now clearly there is an injustice that's taking place that can be corrected with a simple if the action lawsuit being answered and he diction lawsuit is civil litigation so the term is so broad that it would preclude something as simple as helping society we have one mostly to do societies on the face of the planet which cost us in many ways not the least of which is jobs that are sent overseas and too often americans seem to want to sue their neighbor instead of love their neighbor i would be a little bit more favorably disposed towards the underlying amendment if the money was actually going to help on the criminal side with gentlemen the old would be happy to you how much more favorably not that favorable i didn't think of reclaiming my time it's all a matter of relativity mr chairman but we've seen evidence of incredible amounts of fraud now some of it's on the lender side but there's a lot of it on the bar's side is well and although it's been many years i used to make a living as an attorney trying to live it down but i recall being required to perform pro bono work i believe in almost every major community in this nation there will be attorneys available to do pro bono work second of all is this gentleman from north carolina pointed out many attorneys will accept cases on contingencies and then last but not least last i looked the legal services corporation was alive and well i wish it wasn't but it is because i think they spent too much time shaking down taxpayers as opposed to helping with civil justice in our nation but to sit here and say that somehow people are going to be denied any opportunity whatsoever of redress of grievances in the civil court i just don't think concise the facts again there are a lot of different opportunities available and so i thought that the gentleman had a well designed a minute that would go towards the heart of this disagreement apparently it doesn't satisfy some on the other side but i did want to again point out that i didn't think our purpose was to promote more litigation and if it was there are plenty other necessary depending on the nature of the speaker could be over by then we will now and we now have pending remember the promo to remember it the price amendment and then the underlying amendment those the vocals and i was scheduled were in recess till twelve fifteen will not be until all the other locals we want to take separate locals on that so there will be no roll calls for the rest of the made in the day by mutual consent we're going to roll the vote to a even maybe this afternoon or tomorrow morning by mutual consent to what's convenient on everything