Background

On Monday, June 22nd, three top mortgage industry lobbyists and an insurance PAC will co-host a fundraising event for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) at The Monocle Restaurant steps away from the U.S. Senate. The fundraising event comes less than a week after President Barack Obama announced a series of regulatory reforms of the financial sector, including ones that impact the mortgage industry like a new “Financial Products Safety Commission.”

Grassley has been the beneficiary of the financial, insurance, and real estate industries. Over his career, he’s received $2,273,180 in campaign contributions from these interests, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That total includes $260,810 from commercial banking interests, $888,724 from insurance interests, and $248,655 from the real estate interests. In addition, Grassley’s Hawkeye PAC, a leadership committee, has received more than half a million dollars from the finance, insurance, and real estate sector.1 [0]

The hosts – those responsible for raising money for Grassley – are Akin Gump lobbyist Smith “Smitty” Davis, Pace Bradshaw of the Mortgage Bankers Association, Suzanne Hutchinson of the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America, and the AFLAC PAC.2

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The Hosts

Smith W. “Smitty” Davis

• Lobbyist at Akin, Gump and is the head of their financial institutions policy practice.
  
  
• Current clients (with payments from 2008-2009) include Moody’s ($890,000), Mortgage Insurance Companies of America ($980,000), Private Equity Council ($750,000), and the US Chamber of Commerce ($1,050,000).
  
  
• Worked for Sen. Phil Gramm’s presidential campaign in the 1996 election cycle.
  
  
• Lobbied to pass Gramm’s deregulatory efforts in 2000 as registered as a lobbyist for Dow Jones & Co.3 [0] -- deregulations widely seen as contributing to the current economic crisis as well as the collapse of Enron.
  
  
• Had language inserted in legislation to benefit an insurance company that saved them an estimated a million dollars in rent per year in a Des Moines 14-story building.4 [0]

Ryan “Pace” Bradshaw

• Associate director of government affairs and a registered lobbyist for the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).
  
  
• MBA has spent nearly $8 million lobbying since 2007.
  
  
• MBA’s PAC over that time has also given $1.4 million in campaign contributions.
  
  
• MBA led the fight to stop Sen. Durbin’s bill to allow renegotiation of mortgages by bankruptcy judges, which Grassley voted against.
  
  
• MBA’s chairman, David Kittle, told assembled members at their annual gathering that they needed to remain vigilant: “We need to keep fighting this. We need to keep giving to the PAC, on a regular basis,” he told them, emphatically.5 [0]
  
  
• Sen. Grassley and his leadership committee called the Hawkeye PAC have received $28,909 from the MBA’s PAC, over his career.

Suzanne Hutchinson

• Executive vice president and a registered lobbyist for the Mortgage Insurance Companies of America (MICA).
  
  
• MICA spent $8.5 million lobbying Washington since 2007.

AFLAC PAC

• AFLAC employees and their PAC have given $14.3 million in campaign contributions over the past two decades, including $2.3 million since 2007.
  
  
• They’ve spent nearly $20 million lobbying Congress and the White House in the past five years.
  
  
• Over his career, Sen. Grassley and his leadership committee called the Hawkeye PAC have received $50,000 from AFLAC employees and its PAC, including twin $5,000 checks to both his re-election campaign (he’s running for re-election in 2010) and his Hawkeye PAC this year.

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http://politicalpartytime.org/party/12100/ [1]
http://americannewsproject.com/videos/mortgage-bankers-celebrate-victory [2]