Today, the California Assembly passed SB 137 on a vote of 46 to 11. It had previously been passed by the Senate 36 to 2., It will now go the the governor's office. As Governor Schwarznegger has already approved provisions that diluted the bill, he is expected to sign it.

In 2004, Tom and Anita Radcliff lost their $300,000 home for $120 in unpaid assessments . They only learned about it when a sheriff knocked at their door and told them that they had to get out of the house.

In response, Assemblyman Darryl Steinberg introduced a bill that would ban non-judicial foreclosure for unpaid assessments in homeowner associations. Homeowners cheered. They had watched for years how greedy and unscrupulous CAI lawyers had foreclosed on home after home.

But these rapacious lawyers were not about to go quietly.

They stripped the bill of the ban on foreclosures. They lowered the ceiling for foreclosure from $5,000 to $2,500. The realtors demanded that the provision requiring homes to be sold for at least 80% of their value, be reduced to 65%.

Then they all ganged together and lobbied the pliant ear of the governor to veto the bill in September 2004. Money somehow has a very persuasive voice!

This year, Senator Denise Ducheny introduced SB 137 - the stripped down version that Schwarzenegger had vetoed. It was sailing along in the California legislature until the lobbyists geared up again, and like a pack of ravenous wolves tearing at a carcass, they decimated the bill even more. Senator Duchney was forced to drop the $2,500 ceiling to $1,800, and finally, to strip the equity provision from the bill at the demand of the realtors. A home can now be sold for any price after 12 months - even for a $1. The realtors and other foreclosure sharks are salivating all the way to the bank.

This naked and brutal exercise of lobbyist power is shocking. But a similar exercise of power in the bayous of New Orleans produced a shocking disaster as well.

Citizens need to dust off their glasses and see things as they really are - and then do something about it. Otherwise a hurricane of a different stripe will rip their homes from their foundations, and flood them with the slimy, smelly ooze from the slobbyists.

NOTES:

HOW CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS VOTED

SENATE VOTES (36 - 2)

AYES - Pro-homeowner. - Aanestad Alarcon Alquist Ashburn Battin Bowen Cedillo Chesbro Denham Ducheny Dunn Dutton Escutia Figueroa Florez Hollingsworth Kehoe Kuehl Lowenthal Machado Maldonado Margett McClintock Migden Morrow Ortiz Perata Poochigian Romero Runner Scott Simitian Soto Speier Torlakson Vincent
NOES - Anti- homeowner - Ackerman Cox
ABSENT, ABSTAINING, OR NOT VOTING - Campbell Murray

ASSEMBLY VOTES (46 - 11)

AYES - Pro-homeowner. - Coming...
NOES - Anti- homeowner -Coming...

A legislative consultant's analysis of the final version of SB 137

Related link:: California bills