Schneiderman’s critics have complained that his blocking of the deal is nothing more than political grandstanding, that instead of helping homeowners, he’s hurting them. This is preposterous. Homeowners deserve a fair deal, and this isn’t one.
With attorneys general unwilling to do a serious investigation that would show how pervasive mortgage malpractice was — and how gravely the public has been damaged— how could the resulting deal possibly be fair? The kind of genuine investigation Schneiderman is fighting to undertake, on the other hand, could result in a full accounting of what really happened, and it could mean a different level of accountability for banks (perhaps there could even be criminal charges).
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and publisher of the Nation magazine, vanden Heuvel writes a weekly column for The Post.
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Schneiderman is an all-too-rare political leader — one who understands that public service isn’t just about talk. It’s about fighting for what he calls “transformational politics.” As he argued in 2008 in the pages of the Nation, our politics cannot merely be transactional. The difference is real — and substantial. Transactional politics aims to get the best deal today. Transformational politics, as Schneiderman puts it, “is the work we do today to ensure that the deal we can get . . . in a year — or five years, or twenty years — will be better than the deal we can get today.”
Though an effort has been made by some to cast Schneiderman as a loner in the mortgage-settlement fight, events in recent weeks show him as anything but. On Aug. 25, after Schneiderman was removed from the negotiations, 21 of New York’s congressional representatives sent a letter of protest to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who was responsible for Schneiderman’s ouster. On Sept. 8, the New York City Council passed a resolution supporting Schneiderman’s stand and asking the larger committee of state attorneys general not to give up the right to pursue further investigations. Even former New York senator Al D’Amato, a conservative Republican, has offered broad praise for Schneiderman’s effort.
Schneiderman has also found strong support from two other important state attorneys general, Delaware’s Beau Biden and Massachusetts’s Martha Coakley.
Some now predict the negotiations will collapse, with banks unwilling to give back even what chump change is now on the table. Only an investigation like the one Schneiderman has been pushing for could provide the leverage needed to force banks to make an offer commensurate with the scale of the harm they caused.
At a time when so many of our political leaders seem more in touch with the needs of K
Street, detached from the people they represent, it is heartening to see a gutsy leader like Schneiderman willing to stand with people against the forces that blew up our economy.
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