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SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS--The predatory lending issue has been heating up in Illinois and Governor George Ryan and the two state regulators are taking the heat for introducing bogus state reforms.

Three months after the state of Illinois passed legislation to give the two state regulators, Office of Banks and Real Estate and the Department of Financial Institutions, the authority to establish regulations on predatory lending, the state regulators issued weak draft regulations that would allow predatory lending to continue.

Groups from the Illinois Coalition Against Predatory Home Loans- representing Chicago communities and downstate Illinois met with Governor Ryan to tell him to scrap the draft regulations. No regulations were better than having weak regulations that would legitimize predatory lending. The room was crowded with people who repeated the same line: these regulations would not stop the predatory loans that were devastating their neighborhoods.

"We expect the Governor to show leadership on this issue, just as he did with gun control and the death penalty," said Reverend Jack Cramer-Heuerman from the Central Illinois Organizing Project, referring to issues where the Governor had stepped in the national spotlight for contradicting Republican party dogma and the status quo.

The regulations only had two prohibitions. They prohibited lenders from making loans where borrowers paid 75 percent of their income in mortgage payments, not including hundreds of dollars in property taxes and insurance.

The regulations also prohibited flipping, which is repeated, unnecessary refinancing within one year without reducing mortgage payments. This meant that lenders could make loans that reduced the first monthly mortgage payment by $1, and allow monthly mortgage payments to increase every six months.

The regulations also require more disclosures to the borrower, many of which are already required by federal laws. Often disclosures mean more paper work that can be used to confuse the borrower. Governor Ryan agreed to table the weak draft regulations, but did not say when and if stronger regulations would be released. Two weeks later, groups met with state Senator Barack Obama, who co-chairs the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, the state legislative committee that has the power to approve or disapprove the regulations. He agreed to hold a press conference with groups from the Illinois Coalition.

So far, groups have been successful in making sure that the weak state regulations have not been released.