Compromise Sought on Ney-Kanjorski

Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, wants to conduct a subcommittee mark-up of his bipartisan predatory-lending bill before the August recess, and he is working with some Democrats to broker a compromise.Congressman Ney is "looking to mark up the bill sometime in July," a congressional staffer told a reverse mortgage association. Other sources said Rep. Ney wants to mark up the bill that he drafted with Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., before Congress leaves for the August recess, but it is not set in stone yet. The Ney-Kanjorski bill (H.R. 1295) has 37 co-sponsors, including 15 Democrats. However, more Democrats and consumer groups favor an alternative bill (H.R. 1182), co-sponsored by North Carolina Democrats Brad Miller and Mel Watt, that is modeled after a North Carolina predatory-lending law. Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., recently told a Mortgage Bankers Association conference that Rep. Ney has approached him about brokering a compromise between the two bills. Rep. Meeks is a co-sponsor of the Ney-Kanjorski bill. However, Rep. Miller has not been part of this effort. "We'd better get cracking if we're going to work out a consensus bill in less than a month," Rep. Miller told MortgageWire.