With the housing crisis leading our economy into a swoon, it has been an ugly year for U.S. homeowners and an unfortunate introduction into the practices of mortgage lenders like Countrywide Financial, the poster child for pushing "subprime" loans that have ultimately put over a million homes at risk of foreclosure.

We documented how the mortgage lending industry appeared to buy off Congress with $210 million in lobbying and campaign contributions, leading to inaction on the subprime lending situation until it became a crisis too big to ignore.

Things appear even sleazier today after Portfolio.com investigated Countrywide and found that at least two U.S. Senators received favorable loan deals, worth several thousand dollars if not tens of thousands, as yet another example of how the industry curried favor with leaders in Congress.

UPDATE (Monday, 9 a.m.): The Washington Post this morning clarifies that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is not putting retroactive immunity on hold forever; he's just pushing back that debate by a couple months and may still cave to the White House. Senators Chris Dodd and Patrick Leahy remain vigorously opposed; hopefully they'll spend the next couple months laying out the case to their caucus and the majority leader.

....

Some good news, despite the Wall Street Journal's claims to the contrary: it appears that the Congress will not grant blanket immunity to the telecom industry for allowing warrantless wiretapping by the government.

There's no reason for Congress to retroactively grant immunity to a powerful special interest like the telecommunications industry for what appears to be illegal activities.  The Bush administration is claiming that simultaneously (1) what they did isn't illegal, (2) they should be given legal immunity anyway, and (3) they can't tell us what they did because it's a national security issue.  It seems that they're trying to have it both ways.  Congress is wise to delay until this issue can be properly resolved, and questions of executive branch overreach and abuse of power are answered in the light of day.

More on this in my earlier post here.

In the evolving fight to preserve the rule of law by not granting retroactive amnesty to the telecom companies who allowed warrantless wiretapping--i.e. domestic spying--on Americans, Sen. Chris Dodd has made a series of bold steps.

He first put a 'hold' on the bill, stopping it from reaching the Senate floor.

When the whispers began that Majority Leader Harry Reid might still bring the bill to the floor, Dodd announced that he would filibuster, and has been joined by several other Senators.  Thank goodness.

As I pointed out earlier, not only does the notion of amnesty for the telecoms have serious and troubling implications for the basic tenets of law and justice--and that if the telecoms are granted immunity, it's likely that we'll never be able to accurately determine whether and to what extent the Bush administration illegally spied on Americans--but it also ties directly back to the corrupting and overwhelming influence of powerful special interest money in politics.

Note how the Senator who forged this compromise received ten times more money from the telecoms this past year than in the five previous years combined.

Two simple takeaways, for me:

1. The telecoms should not receive retroactive immunity, especially when it's still unclear what they're receiving it for, i.e. whether what they did was legal, and what the specifics of the program were.

2. Whether or not his compliance was bought, the clear impression from that spike in campaign cash from the telecom industry to Rockefeller is that he's not an impartial legislator.  Until we create a system of full public financing for all races, especially for Congress, we will continue to live with the suspicion--if not the reality--that powerful special interests are buying favors and currying excessive influence with our lawmakers.  It is moments like this--when the apparent "best interests" of the people come into conflict with the wishes of major campaign donors--that highlight why having a political system awash in private money is such a bad idea for our democracy and why we must devote ourselves to changing it.

I've spent the past two weeks working in Iowa to reach out to activists and organizations here to help get Presidential candidates talking about--and making commitments on--full public financing of campaigns.  This may be the one chance we have in the next four five-plus years for regular people to get in close enough contact with the candidates to bring this issue to their attention.

I find it especially relevant because so many candidates talk about how they'll "change Washington," change the culture, take on the greedy interests, "represent the people," and I'd like them to get into specifics.  And if they really want to do that, well, public financing is the obvious answer.

So I was incredibly refreshed to watch the Yearly Kos presidential forum this weekend and see not one, not two, not three, but at least four--and perhaps all--of the Democratic candidates saying, "we support public financing."

The clip is about eight minutes long, and it's all good, although the part I'm talking about starts at minute four and continues until nearly the end.

But this isn't just my issue.  This makes sense.  For one, voters are smart enough to want a change in Washington and to appreciate a candidate who can get specific about how they'll do it.  Maybe some are satisfied with a sound bite, but caucus-goers in Iowa, primary voters across the country, and even the general population is, I think, wise enough to know a real plan from a platitude.

And oh yeah, we also polled the public last year and found that to be overwhelmingly true: 74% of voters support full public financing of campaigns.

It's not just a good change for democracy, it's a good policy to promote if you want to get elected.  I hope the candidates catch on; I hope they paid attention to that sustained applause and partial standing ovation that Chris Dodd received when he mentioned public financing of campaigns at the forum.

In case they didn't, in Iowa we'll continue to ask them.