Kamala Harris' mortgage meltdown record under scrutiny as campaign heats up [View all]

[left-of-center2012]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Kamala-Harris-mortgage-meltdown-record-under-13730708.php

Sen. Kamala Harris of California regularly points to how, as state attorney general, she wrestled $20 billion from the nation’s big banks in 2012 after the housing meltdown — after initially walking away from negotiations when the institutions offered $2 billion to settle. No attorney general secured more for their state from Wall Street after the mortgage crisis.

But Harris rarely mentions something else that happened in 2012: Her office declined to sue OneWest, the California bank whose CEO was now-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, an architect of the Republican tax cut law that Harris and other Democrats deride as being a giveaway to the wealthy.

Low-income housing advocate Paulina Gonzalez-Brito remains disappointed that Harris didn’t pursue a case.

“The question is, when push comes to shove, when you’re faced with that level of opposition from monied interests, are you willing to stand up to those monied interests?” said Gonzalez-Brito, who is the executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, which represents 300 community organizations, mostly in low-income neighborhoods. The nonprofit does not endorse candidates.

“In this case, Kamala Harris made a decision to not take on OneWest Bank,” said Gonzalez-Brito.
“It’s unfortunate,” Gonzalez-Brito said. “It was disappointing.”