Back in April the House of Representatives passed a bill known as HR 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010 and sent it to the Senate where it languished in the Judiciary Committee until late September. The circumstances of the passage of this bill in the Senate are curious, to say the least. It was discharged from committee and passed by unanimous consent, with no debate, just as the 111th session of Congress was coming to a close.
The bill is relatively simple:
Each Federal court shall recognize any lawful notarization made by a notary public licensed or commissioned under the laws of a State other than the State where the Federal court is located if –(1) such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce; and
(2) (A) a seal of office, as symbol of the notary public’s authority, is used in the notarization; or (B) in the case of an electronic record, the seal information is securely attached to, or logically associated with, the electronic record so as to render the record tamper-resistant.
Superintendent of Documents – H. R. 3808 GPO 111th Congress
Seems pretty innocuous, really, but in the context of emerging reports of foreclosure fraud at the time it qualified for notorious distinction as the ‘silver bullet’ which banks were hoping would solve their documentation problems and earned itself a presidential veto.