http://www.nysun.com/editorials/spitzer-wins-one/15795/
Spitzer Wins One
Editorial of The New York Sun | June 21, 2005
The attorney general of New York, Eliot Spitzer, finally won one in court yesterday when he defeated an attempt by a group of banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, to restrain him preemptively from subpoenaing their records. Mr. Spitzer prevailed on that procedural matter before Judge Sidney Stein of the federal court for the Southern District of New York. But as the attorney general goes on to attempt to regulate the practices of the national banks, he may have to make a detour through Congress.
Mr. Spitzer is attempting to obtain information from the banks about the mortgage rates they charge to minority homebuyers. Banks are required to collect and publicly release some of this information under the 1975 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, enacted to prevent racial discrimination in the housing market. The publicly available data suggest to some people that the banks might be discriminating. Mr. Spitzer launched an investigation in April, and has requested that banks provide additional information.
The banks have argued that non-race factors, such as credit scores, explain the difference between mortgage rates for some minorities and whites that appeared in the public disclosure. Maybe. At issue, though, is which regulator should look into this - Mr. Spitzer or the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal agency charged with oversight of national banks.
Mr. Spitzer argues that states should be allowed to regulate the banks that do business within their borders. The banks argue that under federal law, the comptroller alone has authority to regulate national banks. A spokesman at the comptroller's office, Kevin Mukri, says that the federal government has been scrutinizing claims of discriminatory lending for "many, many years."