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.

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.

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.

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