Norm Coleman + mortgage industry = BFF

On Thursday housing-advocacy group ACORN and Sharon Young, a St. Paul resident facing foreclosure, presented a giant (literally and figuratively) check to Sen. Norm Coleman. “This check shows how Senator Coleman’s votes against foreclosure assistance for my family have been bought and paid for by the mortgage industry,” Young said in a statement.

Young is facing foreclosure because monthly payments on her small East St. Paul home have risen from $1,600 to $2,100.  “As new foreclosure assistance legislation moves through the U.S. Senate this week or next, we are counting on Senator Coleman to stand up to the corporate interests that funded his campaign and help my family stay in our home and off the streets,” she said.

Of course, Smiles Coleman standing up to corporate interests is about as likely as a lawn chair standing up to a watermelon. A report issued by ACORN reveals that Coleman took $23,000 in contributions from two interest groups strongly opposed to the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. But that’s small potatoes compared to Coleman’s other campaign contributions this year.

According to OpenSecrets.com, Coleman has received a total of $477,000 from the real-estate industry (PACs and individual donors) during this election cycle. That makes him seventh in the Senate when it comes to getting bought out by the real-estate/mortgage industry.

Yet Coleman is actually the No. 1 Senate recipient who isn’t running for president of contributions from the combined mortgage, finance, and insurance sector. Those industries are Coleman’s biggest backers, with donations totaling $2 million. That’s double the amount received from his second-biggest contributor of “miscellaneous businesses” and four times as much as he’s received in contributions from agribusiness.