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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Report: A Money Trail Connection to NH Mortgage Meltdown?

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Monday, September 29, 2008   

Concord, NH – A new report traces a money trail leading directly from the New Hampshire mortgage meltdown to the current national financial crisis. State numbers show 15 percent of sub-prime mortgages are in foreclosure and 25 percent more are past due. According to the non-partisan public interest group, Common Cause, the lending industry's contributions and lobbying can be connected to delays on Congressional measures that could have helped avert the crisis.

Study author Mike Surrosco says the problem is systemic.

"This is an industry that has had a lot of influence in Congress and that has lead to less regulation of the industry. Essentially, we've driven off of a cliff now."

One way to break the connection between special interest campaign donations and Congress--whether the influence is real or perceived-–would be to change the way elections are funded, Surrosco suggests.

"Clean elections, voter-owned elections, publicly financed elections would raise money from a pool for candidates instead of having to go fund-raise."

According to the report, New Hampshire members of Congress have received more than $75,000 in contributions from mortgage bankers and brokers since the 2000 election cycle. The influence of campaign donations is usually denied by those elected to office, and campaign donations are also supported as a right of free speech.

The report can be found at www.commoncause.org.




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