Drug makers, insurance companies and health providers have chosen carefully in deciding where to put their campaign dollars in North Carolina.

North Carolina's lawmakers in Washington have received millions of dollars from health-related companies in the past three campaigns, according to a new analysis by Democracy North Carolina, a government watchdog group, Barb Barrett reports.

Top among them: Sen. Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican and a member of the Senate health committee who has submitted his own legislation for health reform.

Burr received nearly $1.7 million from health and insurance interests from 2003 through 2008, according to the organization. It conducted its analysis using data compiled from the Center for Responsible Lending and the Federal Elections Commission. (N&O)

The Durham-based Center for Responsible Lending is backing House legislation that targets what the group calls predatory lending practices by some North Carolina auto dealers who finance their customers' loans.

"This is taking advantage of car buyers in the worst way, along with taking their hard-earned money each and every payment," Chris Kukla, lobbyist for the Center for Responsible Lending, said in a press release. "What's worse is car dealers are not even required to disclose marked up interest rates to buyers under state law."

In a report called "Car Trouble" published Thursday, the group describes practices it calls dealer kickbacks, loan packing and "yo-yo scams," Bruce Siceloff reports.

Rep. Dan Blue of Wake County has sponsored a bill aimed at the practices, while auto dealers said the report was misleading.

More after the jump.

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U.S. Rep. Brad Miller wants to centralize lending oversight.

The Raleigh Democrat has co-sponsored a bill that would create a new Financial Product Safety Commission that would enforce consumer protection, evaluate lending practices, coordinate enforcement with state and federal regulators and issue public reports.

Currently, at least 10 different federal agencies have responsibility for loans and other consumer financial products. The new agency's name mimics the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent government agency that regulates safety of consumer products.

"Our economy is in a deep hole dug by the financial industry," Miller said in a statement. "For years they defended every consumer lending practice, regardless of how predatory the practice appeared on its face, as necessary to make credit available to ordinary Americans."

Miller played a key role in bankrupty reforms being considered by the Senate. He is working with Rep. Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts and Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chuck Schumer of New York and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts on this bill.

The bill has been endorsed by over 55 national and state organizations, including labor unions, civil rights groups and consumer protection advocates such as the Center for Responsible Lending in Durham.

Two North Carolina Congressmen went across party lines on a housing bill.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 234-191, primarily along party lines, to pass a housing bill that aims to prevent foreclosures by helping struggling homeowners. 

One of the bill's provisions would allow bankruptcy judges to modify the existing terms fo mortgages for homeowners, allowing them to pay off debts over three to five years' time.

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a Republican, voted with the Democrats in favor of the bill, while Rep. Larry Kissell, a Democrat, voted with the GOP against it. 

The bill includes language that was written by U.S. Rep. Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, while working with the Center for Responsible Lending in Durham.

The bill now goes to the Senate. (N&O)

Attorney General Roy Cooper has been blacklisted, but it's really more like black humor.

His name was published on a the Web site for the Predatory Lending Association, a bogus trade group that poses as a resource for payday lenders, Titan Barksdale reports.

The Web site, however, lampoons predatory lending, and credits Cooper for ridding North Carolina of major payday lenders. Cooper has taken an aggressive stance against payday lenders in North Carolina suing and prosecuting them.

"Mr. Cooper claims to 'bust scams that prey on unsuspecting people,' but his anti-competitive policies have busted our profits from predatory lending," the Web site says.

The site lists Cooper and several opponents of predatory lending such as Martin Eakes, founder of the Center for Responsible Lending. Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for the Attorney General's Office, called the blacklisting of Cooper "hilarious."

The Kansas City Star published a story on the Web site this week, which was created by a Topeka native and former Microsoft employee.

Democratic U.S. Reps. Mel Watt of Charlotte and Brad Miller of Raleigh introduced legislation today aimed at protecting consumers against predatory home mortgages.

It requires mortgage brokers and bank loan officers to be licensed, requires borrowers to have a reasonabile ability to repay a loan and prohibits brokers from earning more money by steering borrowers into higher-risk loans, reports Barb Barrett.

The bill, an update from similar legislation they filed in 2005, is based largely on North Carolina’s subprime mortgage lending law, often considered among the most stringent in the nation. The Miller/Watt bill also sets standards for prime mortgage lending, Watt said.

“I think it’s been demonstrated it’s needed over the last several years,” said Watt. “Some of the practices that were taking place in the subprime and prime markets just have kind of gotten out of hand.”

Read more after the jump.

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