MERS Continues Efforts To Allegedly 'Buy Off' Congress By Beefing Up Its Gang Of Lobbyists

The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets Blog reports:

• One company embroiled in the nation's property foreclosure crisis is not unprepared for a fight. In Washington, D.C., Merscorp Inc. has retained several well-heeled lobbyists and invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying efforts since the start of the mortgage crisis and economic meltdown.Merscorp Inc. is the parent company of Virginia-based Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), which serves as an electronic registry for 67 million U.S. mortgages -- more than 60 percent of the country's total.

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• Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi recently summed up the company's status this way: "In short, the mortgage industry considers MERS owner enough to foreclose on you, but not owner enough to be sued, or reasoned with, or even to provide basic customer service."

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• The company has retained several lobbyists with powerful pedigrees. Among them?
  
  (1) Former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Livingston (R-La.),
  (2) J. Allen Martin, Livingston's former chief of staff,
  (3) Arnold Havens, who formerly served as general counsel at the U.S. Treasury,
  (4) John M. Duncan, who formerly worked in the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush and served as the chief of staff for Sen. William Roth (R-Del.) -- the former Senate Finance Committee Chairman who is the namesake of the Roth IRA investment vehicle.

• Merscorp has also utilized the lobbying services of two other men who have passed through the "revolving door" between public service and the private sector: William D. Crosby Jr., a long-time lawyer for the House Rules Committee, and Steve Kreseski, the former chief of staff for Rep. Bob Ehrlich (R-Md.).

For more, see Embattled Virtual Mortgage Registry MERS Retains Top Lobbying Talent.