Welcome news from the Obama Administration today.  The President will veto (either outright or as a pocket veto) the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010.  The bill orders federal and state courts to recognize the the marks of out of state notaries.  It's actually been floating around Washington for a long time, getting nowhere but then it was suddenly and unanimously (and quietly) passed by the Senate on its last day in official session, right when homeowners, plaintiffs attorneys and state attorneys general have been accusing national mortgage lenders of forging foreclosure documents, partly by improperly using out of state notaries.

See, in many cases, mortgages and titles weren't properly handled by the mortgage companies.  This is shocking, I know.  The loans were all packaged and sold but not everything was delivered to the new owners.  This has led to all sorts of funny business including multiple banks foreclosing on a single home and even one instance of Bank of America foreclosing on a home that had no mortgage balance whatsoever.

In Florida and other real estate bubble hot spots, mortgage servicers are turning into or turning to the services of foreclosure mills where tens of thousands of foreclosures are processed and plowed through special courts manned by inexpert retired judges.  Many times documents are lacking.  When they can't be found, they're created.  The Notarizations Act allows not just for out of state notaries to function but for them to notarize documents electronically.  Hey, it's 2010, makes sense, right?  More documents can be notarized faster in the digital age!  But it's also mighty convenient for a mortgage company in desperate need of a signed and notarized document that it either lost or never had, to create that document and use it to steal some one's property.  Is that what's going on?  We don't know, but it's not worth the risk.  We do know that desperate companies are doing some pretty evil things all throughout the heartland.

It's rather suspicious that our dysfunctional Senate got it together so quickly to pass a bill like this.  I'm sure Senate detractor DH is really impressed.  I wish I could find the link but the first thing I read about this in the morning quoted an unnamed Senate staffer as saying that "constituent calls" prodded the Senate into action on this.  Can you imagine?  Law pertaining to notaries have always been a passionate topic among my friends and family.  Thanksgiving 2004 can never again be spoken of thanks to Jack Daniels, Dad, a wooden chair and an argument about whether you can notarize a signature or only a document with a signature on it.  Admit it.  You all called the Senate about this.

Anyway, I was going to blog here that Obama should veto the bill, but I guess he didn't need to hear from me.  He's made the right move.  More like this, please, Mr. President.  This gives me some reason to believe that your head's in the right place.

Another piece of good news: apparently the media is taking to calling it the "foreclosure docs bill," which should be a very nice way of patting on the grave once it's killed.  Propaganda actually working for us.  What is this, opposite day?