Fannie, Freddie Break Up Lobbying Arms

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have dismantled their powerful lobbying corps, removing two dozen people who made up one of Washington's most formidable advocacy teams. The departures came after the government announced that all lobbying by the companies would end while they are under federal control. Before they were taken over by the government, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent millions of dollars a year on internal and outside lobbyists to keep politicians at bay, countering legislative efforts to regulate them more closely. Now, their chief emissary before Congress is the government agency that runs them — the Federal Housing Finance Agency.