• Laura Richardson

    California Rep Laura Richardson to Face Full House Ethics Investigation

    Cuba’s dictator Fidel Castro and Rep. Laura Richardson

    Apparently a full-scale House ethics investigation is moving forward.

    The House Ethics Committee is moving toward a full-scale investigation of Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.), who has been under scrutiny for months over allegations that her staff engaged in banned political activities while on government time, according to several sources close to the matter.

    Ethics Committee staffers have been digging into the claims against Richardson since last year as part of a “preliminary inquiry” by the panel, and they have been interviewing current and former Richardson aides. The investigators are looking into allegations that Richardson and some of her most senior staffers pressured other aides to work on her reelection campaign or be fired, according to these sources and news reports. Staffers on the congressional payroll are banned from working on political campaigns during official time, and no House resources can be used for campaign-related activities, according to House rules and federal statute.

    If the Ethics Committee were to create an special investigative subcommittee to oversee the Richardson case, it would dramatically raise the legal and political stakes for the three-term California Democrat.

    Richardson’s campaign committee is already hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, including more than $125,000 owed to three law firms, and she faces a potential three-way Democratic primary fight against Rep. Janice Hahn and California Assemblyman Isadore Hall in a newly redrawn congressional district.

    Rep. Laura Richardson is probably already TOAST for re-election. Newly elected Rep. Janice Hahn will likely beat her in the newly drawn Congressional District – unless these CD’s are thrown out by a federal court.

    Richardson has been in continual ethics trouble since she was elected in a special election in 2007.

    A Sacramento home that Richardson bought that year went into foreclosure in 2008, the third home on which Richardson has missed mortgage payments. The bank that held the Sacramento mortgage, Washington Mutual, then sold the home to a real estate investor.But Washington Mutual later took the home back and returned it to Richardson and modified her mortgage. Following a lawsuit, Washington Mutual reached a settlement with the investor who had purchased the home.

    The Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee both investigated the incident. The Ethics Committee ruled in July 2010 that Richardson “did not knowingly violate” any ethics rules in the case.

    In November 2010, just four months after the mortgage controversy was resolved, the Los Angeles Wave, a community newspaper, reported that Ethics Committee staffers were looking into allegations that Richardson had forced her official staff to work for her reelection campaign while on official time or lose their jobs, a potential ethical and statutory violation.

  • Laura Richardson,  Laura Richardson

    MORE Conflicting Stories Over U.S. Representative Laura Richardson’s Home Foreclosure

    United States Representative Laura Richardson (D-California) was officially sworn into office on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 to represent California’s 37th Congressional District.

    Now, there is more to the United States Representative Laura Richardson’s (D, CA-37) home foreclosure problems.

    Rep. Laura Richardson, who lost her Sacramento home in a recent foreclosure auction, has also defaulted on properties in Long Beach and San Pedro, records show.

    Richardson, D-Long Beach, was able to bring her payments up to date on the Long Beach home relatively quickly, but the San Pedro property lingered in the foreclosure process for almost eight months, and still has a pending auction date.

    In her first interview since the news broke Tuesday that her Sacramento home had been foreclosed, Richardson blamed the foreclosure on a miscommunication by her lender. She offered no apologies for failing to make payments on three separate homes and expressed no regret for failing to pay nearly $9,000 in property taxes.

    Laura Richardson Sacramento house

    The Sacramento home owned by Representative Laura Richardson was sold at auction. The buyer agreed to pay her property tax bill, and her lender (Washington Mutual) lost $200,000 on the deal. She is trying to rescind the foreclosure.

    Flap described the bait and switch with campaign cash that Richardson is working.

    Richardson, in the meantime, has worked a pretty good deal. She has been elected to a safe (lifetime tenure) African American seat in a Los Angeles area Congressional district, where she reaps campaign contributions from many special interests, including area defense contractors and unions. She walks away from this home and lets the lender, Washington Mutual, take the loss.

    To pay for her campaign expenses and personal loan debt to HER OWN campaign she collects additional campaign contributions AFTER Washington Mutual forecloses on her equity strapped Sacramento property and takes the loss.

    Her credit score takes a hit but she is an elected Member of Congress with a steady and sizable income. Richardson pays herself back from campaign contributions she accumulates over the course of her election year campaign.

    But, two more houses of Richardson’s have lapsed into foreclosure. What is this Member of Congress doing with her salary?

    Answer: Paying back campaign loans to herself and her campaign consultants to whom she owes over $200K.

    It is obvious that Richardson overextended herself financially to run for Congress and that she has used extremely poor judgment in settling her financial obligations. However, lying about the situation as the Congresswoman apparetnly did to the AP is not helping her.

    Will the Democrat controlled Congress of Speaker Nancy Pelosi launch an investigation into this matter? Probably not.

    Will the newly constituted Federal Elections Commission look at this fiasco, Perhaps.

    Laura Richardson

    A San Pedro home on Parker Street, reportedly owned by Rep. Richardson, went into default in September 2007, at which point she was $12,410.71 behind in payments on the property

    How will this shake out politically?

    Representative Laura Richardson will be mildly humiliated but she is elected to a safe Congressional seat(unless reapportioned out of it in 2012) and will enjoy many years of special interest fundraising to recover from these foreclosures and credit hardships.

    Washington Mutual might be left holding the bag though – at least for the short term. Who knows what this lender can exact in legislation a decade or so from now?

    Stay tuned……

    Update:

    Read Michelle Malkin’s take here.

    In fact, it appears there is a pattern here of cashing out her homes to fill her campaign coffers. But there has been no uproar in Congress over this lawmaker’s appalling behavior. Why? Because it would upset the bipartisan narrative that all homeowners are victims, all lenders are sharks, and that no bad incentives to walk away exist.

    Previous:

    Conflicting Stories Over U.S. Representative Laura Richardson’s Home Foreclosure


  • Laura Richardson

    Conflicting Stories Over U.S. Representative Laura Richardson’s Home Foreclosure

    United States Representative Laura Richardson (D-California) was officially sworn into office on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 to represent California’s 37th Congressional District.

    The story Representative Laura Richardson is telling regarding her foreclosed Sacramento area house is NOT jiving with the public records.

    A Long Beach congresswoman who fell behind lin her payments on a $535,000 mortgage in Sacramento said in a written statement that she owns the home, but financial documents show the house was sold at public auction and has been in the possession of the buyer for weeks.

    The auction for Rep. Laura Richardson’s house, in Sacramento’s Curtis Park neighborhood, took place on May 7. The transaction was detailed in public records filed with the county.

    Congresswoman, what the frak is going on with this home?

    You know, the one you NO LONGER own.

    If Flap were Washington Mutual (the mortgage holder) who lost over $200K on this foreclosure and Sacramento County (property tax collector), I would be suing her ass for every penny she transfers back from her campaign account.

    Richardson, in the meantime, has worked a pretty good deal. She has been elected to a safe (lifetime tenure) African American seat in a Los Angeles area Congressional district, where she reaps campaign contributions from many special interests, including area defense contractors and unions. She walks away from this home and lets the lender, Washington Mutual, take the loss.

    To pay for her campaign expenses and personal loan debt to HER OWN campaign she collects additional campaign contributions AFTER Washington Mutual forecloses on her equity strapped Sacramento property and takes the loss.

    Her credit score takes a hit but she is an elected Member of Congress with a steady and sizable income. Richardson pays herself back from campaign contributions she accumulates over the course of her election year campaign.

    But, now, she is seemingly lying over these shady transactions. It REALLY is transparent as to what she has done.

    Is this kind of behavior Californians want from their members of Congress?