Waxman sets Fannie, Freddie hearings

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. congressional Democrats say they have scheduled hearings into failures at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but not until after the election.

U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Monday he would have a hearing into the firms' collapse on Nov. 20, dashing Republican hopes to use their failure as an election issue to wield against Democrats, the Washington newspaper The Hill reported.

Analysts told The Hill that Republicans see the troubles at the Federal National Mortgage Association and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. as largely attributable to their chief executive officers, who have supported such Democratic U.S. senators as Barack Obama of Illinois, the party's presidential nominee, and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.

House Republicans had criticized Waxman for not including investigation of the mortgage firms in his planned series of hearings into corporate misdeeds that resulted in the financial meltdown, the newspaper said.

"It seems highly suspicious that Chairman Waxman has delayed this particular hearing -- which doubtless will focus on the desperate need for reform and Fannie and Freddie, and the equally desperate efforts by Democratic leaders to block those reforms," Michael Steel, spokesman for House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, told The Hill.