Bloomberg has a story today on one of the more salutary effects of the government’s takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: The mortgage giants have had to shut down their lobbying efforts. The two companies spent $7.4 million on lobbying in the first half of this year, Jonathan Salant writes, and have hired such luminaries as former Sen. Alphonse D’Amato and former Rep. Thomas Downey. There’s a Missouri connection: Rep. Roy Blunt’s former chief of staff, Gregg Hartley, also was part of the Fannie/Freddie lobbying brigade.

As an expert points out in Salant’s story, these companies’ political connections were a big part of the problem:

“This lobbying and insider revolving door created a very comfortable environment where there wasn’t rigorous oversight by Congress,” said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington. He called the lack of strong oversight of the companies “one of the biggest failures of Congress.”