As soon as U.S. Rep. Brad Miller was sworn in for his fourth term in Congress this week, he reintroduced his measure to protect struggling homeowners from foreclosure.

Miller's bankruptcy bill, called The Emergency Homeownership and Equity Protection Act, allows bankruptcy judges to alter the terms of mortgages for those homeowners facing foreclosure who are in subprime mortgages.

The mortgage industry has tried to work on voluntary changes to subprime mortgages where homeowners face foreclosure, but Miller says that hasn’t worked.

"The reforms made by my bill are not only about sound public policy, but also basic fairness," Miller said in a statement. "Voluntary modifications from the mortgage industry are not working and they are not even touching the foreclosure problem."

Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, introduced the measure last Congress, but it faced strong opposition from the banking and mortgage industry and didn’t pass.

A new ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee attacks U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole on a number of votes.

What it says: The ad shows images of Dole and an Alaskan landscape, including a brown bear. Narrator: "Why is Elizabeth Dole ranked 93rd in effectiveness? She voted for millions in pork, including Alaska's bridge to nowhere. But for North Carolina? She voted with George Bush 92 percent. Against raising the minimum wage time after time. Against helping families struggling to keep their homes. For the largest cut ever in student loans. Elizabeth Dole, fighting for ... Alaska? Definitely out of touch with North Carolina. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising."

The background: The ad makes several claims about Dole's voting record.

BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens requested an earmark in the 2006 budget for the proposed $398 million Gravina Island Bridge, nicknamed the "Bridge to Nowhere" by detractors because it serves an island with just 50 residents.

In October of 2005, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn proposed an amendment to the bill that would have shifted $75 million from the bridge and another project in Alaska to the rebuilding of a bridge destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The amendment failed, 15-82, with Dole voting against it.

Congress later stripped the earmark, but gave the state of Alaska an equivalent amount of money for any use it considered appropriate.

MINIMUM WAGE: Starting in 2005, Senate Democrats attempted to raise the federal minimum wage.

In March, Sen. Ted Kennedy proposed raising it by $2.10 over the following 26 months. As a counterproposal, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum proposed raising it by $1.10 over 18 months while exempting more businesses.

Either would have been the first increase in the federal minimum wage since 1997.

The amendments both came on a bill overhauling bankruptcy regulations. Both proposals could have complicated efforts to pass the overhaul, since House leaders had said they would only consider the bill if the Senate did not add unrelated amendments.

The Kennedy amendment failed, 46-49, while the Santorum amendment failed, 38-61. Dole voted against the first amendment, but for the second.

In October, Senate Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to raise the minimum wage by $1.10 an hour over 18 months. Dole voted against that raise as well.

After Democrats gained control of the Senate in 2006, they pushed the minimum wage hike again. Dole voted for the first, which was never signed into law. The wage hike was later included in an emergency spending bill that Dole voted for as well.

ENERGY ASSISTANCE: The fine print on the section of the ad on struggling families cites a vote on home energy asistance.

In 2006, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine proposed spending an additional $1 billion in the 2007 budget for one-time assistance to people who need help paying their heating and cooling bills.

Dole voted against an amendment on the measure, which later passed by a voice vote.

Spokesman Dan McLagan said Dole objected to how the money would be spent.

"The vast majority of the package was aimed at cold-weather states," he said. "All this money was going to go to northern states for a winter that had been mild, versus southern states that had a hot summer."

In 2008, Dole successfully pushed another measure for more spending on the same energy assistance program. She received an award for her efforts from the National Fuel Funds Network, a nonprofit coalition of energy assistance providers.

CREDIT COUNSELING: In April, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray proposed spending another $100 million on foreclosure counseling this year.

At the time, Congress had already budgeted $180 million for credit counselors.

Murray argued that spending more to prevent homeowners from going into foreclosure was "a smart investment," although it would require suspending budget rules that require any new spending to be matched by an equal cut somewhere else.

Senate Republicans argued that they needed to investigate whether the money was being spent appropriately before budgeting more. If more was spent, they argued it should be done through the regular budget process, not an amendment.

The amendment failed 44-40, with Dole voting against it.

PREVIOUS CLAIMS: Washington-based news service Congressional Quarterly compiles yearly figures for how often senators vote with the stated position of the president. The 92 percent figure comes from an average of the yearly scores for Dole, though Congressional Quarterly researchers says that method is inaccurate. Based on its overall score through August, they say the correct figure for Dole is 88 percent. The effectiveness ranking comes from an annual study conducted by the data service Knowlegis.

Is it accurate? Some of the claims are true: Dole voted against a measure to strip funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere," her effectiveness ranking was 93rd, and she voted against more credit counseling for families facing foreclosure. Two other claims are missing context: She voted against raising the minimum wage and providing more energy assistance, though she later voted for both. In addition, the vote on energy assistance had little to do with foreclosure. The figure for her votes with President Bush is off by a few percentage points.

State Sen. Julia Boseman stuck to business Tuesday.

The New Hanover Democrat declined to talk about disclosures that she defaulted on a $1.3 million loan on her former home and smoked marijuana the year before she was elected to the legislature.

Duringa child custody hearing in December, Boseman testified that she had problems with drugs at the tail end of her relationship with her then-domestic partner in 2003. Details of her financial troubles surfaced at a different court hearing last week. (AP)

Boseman, the first openly gay legislator in North Carolina, said that she willingly testified in order to keep access to her adopted son.

"Some time ago, I was faced with a choice of losing my son or having the most intimate details of my private life exposed to the public," she said. "Like any good parent, I put my son before everything else in my life and will continue to fight for him and my family."

Her Republican opponent, attorney Michael Lee, said he would focus on political differences in his campaign. (WS-N)

Walter Dalton promoted his Home Protection Pilot Program in Raleigh today.

At a meeting of the N.C. Housing Finance Agency, the candidate for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor talked about a program that provides no-interest bridge loans to workers who have lost their jobs to prevent them from losing their homes.

The program has helped more than 300 families in 61 counties get bridge loans to keep their homes.

Dalton plans to make the program permanent, extend it to all 100 counties and double the funding.

Spokesman Lewis Lowe said the program began as a response to the displaced textile workers in the senator's home district of Rutherford and Cleveland counties.

"I listen to my constituents," Dalton said. "Many of my textile workers came to me and they were very fearful they would lose their home."

Sharon Lowery, who is a middle school secretary, approached Dalton at a meeting of the N.C. Association of Educators to thank him. She was later invited to share her experience at publicity events.

"I have screamed it from the rooftop 'Thank you Senator Dalton for helping us keep our house,'" she said.

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller wants to help people declaring bankruptcy rewrite the terms of their home loans. 

During a meeting of the Northern Raleigh Rotary Club today, the Raleigh Democrat talked about a bill he sponsored that would allow judges to modify the mortgages of homeowners who declare Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Judges can already modify debts related to vacation homes and cars.

"Allowing people to modify their mortgages the same way they modify a mortgage on a vacation home, a mortgage on investment property, a car loan will allow 600,000 families to keep their home," Miller said.

The bill passed the Judiciary Committee but has not been voted on by the House. A similar bill is making its way through the Senate with the support of Democratic majority leader Harry Reid.

"I think Democrats won two years ago because people wanted a Congress that would stand up to special interest groups," Miller said. "This is the kind of fight that the American people want us to fight and not walk away from."