Veto Message on H.R. 3808, Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. CONYERS. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, I will urge the House to vote ``no'' so as to sustain the President's veto, and I would like to explain why it is important that we are taking this vote.

This bill has passed the House under suspension in each of the last three Congresses. It has been brought forward by our colleague from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt) each time. It requires courts to recognize duly performed out-of-State notarizations. As it was passing the Senate, reports began to surface regarding improper and possibly fraudulent documentation in foreclosure actions across the country.

Improperly performed notarizations were reportedly a major factor in circumventing the legal protections afforded to citizens in foreclosure--notarizations in the absence of the person signing the document or without that person's signature or sometimes even forged notary signatures.

So we are taking a fresh look at the notarization bill. There were concerns that it could have the unintended effect of facilitating improprieties in mortgage foreclosures and in other financial transactions as well in that a State could remove important protections from its notarization rules, and then the bill would effectively force other States to go along.

The President took the responsible course in refusing to sign this bill into law so that we could give it a careful and fresh examination in light of these concerns.

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Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just respond to my dear friend, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, by saying that what we are trying to do here is to prevent the possibility of sloppy, inaccurate, or fraudulent notarizations from creeping into the foreclosure process.

As we all know, many of the foreclosures have now been found to be legally defective because of many things, including, possibly, improper notarizations. With millions of people losing their homes, it really would be almost negligent for us to assume that notarizations coming from another State, which might be electronic, would not be fraudulent. I think caution is the better choice for the matter that is under discussion.

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Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to close by expressing my surprise at the author of this bill, who apparently hasn't heard about the fraud and misrepresentations, the swindling of people whose mortgages have led to foreclosure, and then we find out that the instruments that were brought into court didn't even know who the owner was, much less know who notarized it. So I would caution my colleague to let's be a little bit more careful here. A million people are losing their homes, and you're telling me that we're going to accept a notarization from anywhere, coming from any State, because you've introduced this before this problem began?

I say, ``no.'' We can't even find out who the owners were after these instruments get chopped up and resold and moved in the financial scheme of things. We don't want anybody running the risk of accepting an out-of-State notarization because you've introduced the bill before this problem began. And now that it has begun, let's be careful. Let's be certain that we're protecting everybody that's being foreclosed on, and that's my major concern.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.

The question is, Will the House, on reconsideration, pass the bill, the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding?

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