Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Republican?!

Has Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln secretly joined the Republican Party or just completely sold out to the Banking industry? I heard Senator Dick Durbin talking to Chris Matthews on MSNBC the other day saying he felt the bankers owned the United States Senate. My first question was, "Where’d they get the dang money to buy a senator?" Then I remembered how they took money from the federal government and absolutely refused to tell anyone what they were doing with it. Now I know.

Senator Durbin appeared on the ED Show on MSNBC to express his concerns before the vote.

President Obama told us plain and simple that he planned to do something to help people keep their homes. The aforementioned Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois jumped right on the bandwagon and offered a piece of legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to renegotiate mortgages for homeowners if their bank refused to do so. The idea is two-fold. First, the homeowner gets to keep their home and keep making payments. Second, there’s nothing like a foreclosed home on the block to send property values slithering like an oiled-up college coed on a water slide. (Note to Dan Rather: see, I can come up with ridiculous sayins on my own just like you did during the selection of 2000.)

Now here’s something you might not know. Those self-same judges can already do that for yachts, vacation homes, boats and speculative real estate investors. They just can’t do it for individual homeowners for their primary residence. It seems, on face value, that Senator Durbin’s legislation would be a win-win situation because it would remove a toxic asset from the bank’s unbalanced sheet, protect neighbor’s property values and keep the troubled family with a roof over their head.

Who would oppose such a win-win-win proposal? The stupid bankers! That’s who. Now we all know that bankers and big business have owned the Republican Party hook, line and sinker for as long as I can remember. Individual American homeowners could take solace in the fact that the Grand OLD Party can’t do much more than argue with one another now-a-days, and the Democrats would help them out; after all, the president wanted this to happen.

The Bankers Won

On April 30, 2009 this legislation was voted on and defeated in the Senate when 11 Democrats joined the 40 Republicans to oppose it. Senators Blance Lincoln and Mark Pryor from Arkansas joined the Republicans. So I decided to investigate a few things. Maybe this would not help anyone in Arkansas and Lincoln and Pryor didn’t care about helping anyone else in America.

The Congressional Record showed that the Durbin Amendment would save 7,297 homes in Arkansas from foreclosure. It also showed that neighboring property values in Arkansas would be spared a loss of $85,016,000. That’s over $85 million in property value that would be protected. Now, you and I know that school districts get a lot of funding from property taxes. Reduce the taxable property by $85 million and you can’t help but reduce the money going to the schools.

Since Senator Pryor ain’t running for reelection anytime soon, I was limited in my study to Senator Lincoln’s fundraising for her 2010 campaign. There it was. A March 2, 2009 contribution from the American Bankers Association Political Action Committee. A February 24 contribution from the Bank of America Political Action Committee. A March 3 contribution from the Mortgage Bankers Association Political Action Committee. And there were more contributions from investment firm PACs, and individuals who worked in the banking and investment industries. The biggest Arkansas contributor was Stephens Investments with something like $34,000 in money given to the Senator.

Am I saying Senator Lincoln sold out her constituents? I’m saying it looks like it. I don’t know what was on her mind at the time she voted. All I can judge her by is her action.

But I will tell you this. Health Care Reform will be considered at a later date and the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of Senator Lincoln’s Political Action Committee contributors are from the medical and insurance industries.

The 2010 election in Arkansas could come down to a Republican who proudly wears the button on their lapel and Senator Lincoln who wears her Republican lapel under her Democratic hat.

For more information about her political contributions, you can visit the Federal Election Commission Blanche Lincoln Page.

Take a look at what others are saying:

Arkansas Blog: The shape of things to come – WASHINGTON – Marking President Obama’s 100th day in office, U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) helped the Democrats pass a $3.5 trillion budget resolution today – despite announcements from the U.S. Department of Commerce this morning …

DownWithTyranny!: Estate Tax: Blanche Lincoln And Jon Kyl Attempt … – No senator, no matter which party he or– in the case of Blanche Lincoln– she belongs to, should be re-elected if they oppose this amendment on Thursday. Yesterday evening almost the whole Senate agreed to shut off the filibuster and …

Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln Reverses EFCA Support, But … – Wal-Mart Watch is a nationwide campaign to reveal the harmful impact of walmart on american families and demand reform of their business practices.