Source:
The HillFrank rebuffs GOP calls for ACORN hearings
By Jackie Kucinich
Posted: 10/15/08 03:00 PM
...“My Republican colleagues, in raising the issue of ACORN, which is unrelated to the subject of regulatory restructuring, have apparently decided to try to hijack the committee and turn it into an echo chamber in an effort help out the McCain campaign,” Frank said. “No legislation passed by the House has authorized or appropriated funds for ACORN.”
Republicans have seized on the alleged cases of voter fraud by the grassroots organization and successfully blocked Democratic attempts to insert funding into the financial rescue package passed Oct. 3 that they said would be given to ACORN.
The GOP letter also requested that Frank add former executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), to the witness list for a hearing on restructuring and reforming the financial system, a request to which Frank also declined to acquiesce, arguing that the full hearing held three weeks ago with the regulator and the former CEOs of the GSEs was sufficient.
“The focus of next Tuesday’s hearing is the future of financial market regulation,” he said. “If the Republicans were seriously interested in examining the causes of the sub-prime crisis, they would be insistent that we summon Alan Greenspan, who, as McCain adviser Mark Zandi has pointed out, refused to use the authority given to him by Congress in 1994 to prevent sub-prime abuses.”...
Read more: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/frank-rebuffs-gop-calls-for-acorn-hearings-2008-10-15.html