Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, has introduced legislation to repeal the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, a damaging relic from Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The CRA empowered left-wing activist groups like ACORN and the Greenlining Institute to use claims of racism to force banks and other financial institutions to make loans and mortgages on the basis of the ethnic and demographic makeup of neighborhoods instead of the creditworthiness of borrowers. At the time, this tool of political blackmail was cleverly camouflaged by its proponents behind the righteous cause of ending redlining, the practice in which bankers allegedly drew red lines around certain local neighborhoods, putting them off-limits for loans and mortgages. The redlined areas were typically populated by minority residents, usually African-Americans or Hispanics.
