When George Bush was Governor of Texas the state changed the banking
laws to make it difficult to finance people for home improvement
loans. They put in to affect a 2 week waiting period for people to
change their minds.  I want to know if this was George Bush's idea or
if he was apposed to this and was overruled by the legislature

Hello Wedge1023,

Let me start with a reference from the Comptroller of Texas at:
  http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/homeeqty03/
which states in part that the state constitution prohibited loans on
homes except the first or second mortgage. In 1997 (and later) the
voters approved a constitutional amendment to relax the restrictions.
The summary of that first amendment is posted here:
  http://www.tlc.state.tx.us/research/75soe/ba.htm#hjr31
which indicates a 12 day waiting period prior to repairs beginning and
a 3 day waiting period where the applicant may rescind the contract
without penalty. The full text (and a variety of other links) is
available from:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/db2www/tlo/billhist/Hmatrix.d2w/report?LEG=75&SESS=R&CHAMBER=H&BILLTYPE=JR&BILLSUFFIX=00031
I found a few other references - they generally say that this was a
consumer protection to prevent "strong arming" a person into accepting
such a loan - especially for the elderly.

Note - this amendment did not allow for a "Home Equity Line of Credit"
(HELOC) - that required an additional amendment to the Texas
constitution. That additional amendment was made in 2003.

I was also able to browse the Houston Chronicle archives 
  http://www.chron.com/
(as a subscriber) and find a report on June 3, 1997 (right after the
Texas Legislature completed its work) which states in part:
  "Bush said a bill creating a statewide water conservation and
management plan and a constitutional amendment to let Texans borrow
against the equity in their homes were two of the session's major
accomplishments."
From this statement, he supported this amendment making home equity
loans available to Texas homeowners.

So, when George Bush was governor, there was a great relaxation of the
limits for people to make loans for home improvement.

Searches included:
  home improvement loan comptroller site:state.tx.us
  "home loan" "george w bush" site:state.tx.us
  plus the archive search at chron.com

Let me know if you need any further information on this topic and I
should be able to find it for you.
  --Maniac

---

Request for Answer Clarification by wedge1023-ga on 07 Aug 2004 12:05 PDT

i appreciate your answer but it still does not tell me if it was bush
who supported the twelve day waiting period or did he oppose it? was
he governor when it was inacted and again did he support it?

---

Clarification of Answer by maniac-ga on 08 Aug 2004 13:59 PDT

Hello Wedge1023,

George W. Bush was definitely Governor of Texas in 1997 when
Proposition 8 (allowing home equity loans) was approved by the Texas
House and Senate, when it  was passed by voters, and on January 1998
when it went into effect.

Getting a definitive answer to the other part of your request
  "Did Bush support or oppose the 12 day waiting period?"
is much more difficult.

If you review the original version (by Patterson) of the proposed
amendment, it is relatively short and does not include the 12 day
waiting period. The waiting period was added in the "House Committee
Report" version of the amendment. From the committee report, that
means the words were added sometime between February 17 and April 17,
1997. This would imply the words were added by a House committee
member. News articles refer to a similar bill in the Texas Senate
which included a 15 day waiting period, but the House version was the
one eventually passed as a joint resolution.

A review of related news articles during the period indicated that a
lot of work had gone into satisfying various factions that had opposed
previous efforts. None of these mention Governor Bush in any way. For
example, a Houston Chronicle article on May 30, 1997 has statements by
Rep. Steve Wolens, D-Dallas, Rep. Ken Marchant, R-Dallas, and Rep.
Barry Telford, D-DeKalb but none by any statewide officials.

The quote I already provided was the only one I found that ties
Governor Bush to the constitutional amendment. As quoted in the
original answer, he stated his support for the amendment, calling it a
"major accomplishment" of the legislature. Based on that, I can assume
he supported the consumer protections needed to bring the amendment to
a public vote. It is unclear if he would have preferred to not have
the limits - there appear to be no public statements either way.

  --Maniac

I did a brief search, and could find no information to help you. But
I'm really questioning whether or not a governor would have any
influence over this kind of banking policy.

Kriswrite

Hi Wedge,

I've read that President George W. Bush has had the records of his
time as Governor of Texas removed from public scrutiny:

http://baltimorechronicle.com/prespapers_jan02.html

What the motivation for this decision was depends on whether you
support Bush or Kerry, but the search for those records will probably
be fruitless.

Regards,
bcguide-ga

The article above is about his personal records. Any public act is
going to have records of it somewhere-- if he signed a bill, then that
is public domain, and you will see his signature on it, etc. Yeah,
it's just all a government conspiracy. Or maybe aliens took his
records???

How could anyone possibly construe a twelve day waiting period as
something bad for consumers and borrowers ?!?!?
This is to help curb prdatory loans against folks who do not need them
and/or get pressured into home inprovements they do not need or want.
Mostly these type of things are the elderly.
For pete's sake, be a liberal and a Kerry supporter if you want but
get some objectivity. If you truly need and want an extension on your
house what is twelve days? It helps keep some folks from getting
sucked in to deals they do not need or want and then losing their
homes.