BAGHDAD — Two suicide bomb blasts struck at pro-American Iraqi targets just west of Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul on Thursday, killing at least 30 people and wounding nearly 80.

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By David S. Hilzenrath

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 26, 2008; Page D01

In a sign of continuing trouble in the housing market, mortgage delinquency rates doubled over a 12-month period at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two industry giants reported yesterday.

In April, 1.22 percent of the conventional home loans that Fannie Mae guarantees were past due by at least three months or were in foreclosure. That was up from 1.15 percent in March and about twice the rate recorded in April 2007.

Freddie Mac said its delinquency rate was 0.81 percent in April, up from 0.77 percent in March. The rate was 0.4 in April of last year.

Neither company's figures fully captured the problems borrowers have had making payments, because they excluded loans for which payment terms had been relaxed.

The collapse of the housing bubble has left them the dominant players in housing finance. Together, they bought the equivalent of 68 percent of the single-family mortgages that originated during the first three months of this year, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

After years of hand-wringing about the risks that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's rapid growth might pose to the financial system, the government has loosened restraints on the companies in the stated hope that they will help prop up the housing market.

The monthly reports the companies issued yesterday showed that Freddie Mac has made much more use of its increased purchasing power than Fannie Mae has.

Freddie Mac increased its mortgage-related holdings in May at an annualized growth rate of 53.4 percent, to a total of $770.4 billion, its highest ever. Fannie Mae increased its holdings at an annualized rate of 15 percent, to $736.9 billion.

"Freddie has put its newly freed capital to work," while by comparison Fannie Mae has held back, analyst Jim Vogel of FTN Financial said.

Fannie Mae's report showed that it has substantial purchases in the pipeline.

The purchases have the potential to boost profits or reduce red ink at a time when the companies have been reporting heavy losses. But Freddie appears to have nearly tapped out its buying capacity until it raises more capital, Vogel said.

Both companies expanded their holdings largely by buying their own securities. Such purchases represented $20.2 billion of the $32.8 billion growth in Freddie Mac's investment portfolio in May and $8 billion of the $8.5 billion increase in Fannie Mae's portfolio.

In Freddie Mac's case, those purchases have produced a high concentration of risk, raising questions about the company's financial safety and soundness, analysts at the research firm Federal Financial Analytics said. Freddie Mac securities made up more than half of its mortgage portfolio in May; Fannie Mae securities made up just over a third of its portfolio.

"[W]e're pretty sure that any bank holding as much of its own obligations as Freddie would need to have a great deal more [reserves] in place to handle the resulting liquidity risk," the research firm said in a report yesterday titled "Doubling Down."

A Freddie Mac spokesman said the company is fulfilling its mission.

"The numbers tell that Freddie Mac is continuing to provide critically needed liquidity and stability to the housing finance system during this time of crisis," Freddie Mac spokesman Michael Cosgrove said.

"We're managing our portfolio in a safe and sound manner . . . and taking advantage of purchasing opportunities that make sense," Fannie Mae spokeswoman Janis Smith said.

By Robert Barnes

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 26, 2008; 1:06 PM

The Supreme Court, splitting along ideological lines, today declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns for self-defense, striking down the District of Columbia's ban on handgun ownership as unconstitutional.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee quickly put out a statement endorsing the decision, calling it a "landmark victory" for Second Amendment rights. "Today's ruling . . . makes clear that other municipalities like Chicago that have banned handguns have infringed on the constitutional rights of Americans," McCain said.

Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the Democrats' all but certain nominee, also issued a statement saying that "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures.

"The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe."

In a statement on its web site, the National Rifle Association's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre called the decision "a great moment in American history. It vindicates individual Americans all over this country who have always known that this is their freedom worth protecting."

The lawyers challenging the District's 32-year-old law were able to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last year to do what no other federal appeals court had ever done: strike down a local gun-control ordinance on Second Amendment grounds.

The amendment says that "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," and all but one of the circuits that had considered the issue previously had interpreted it as providing a gun-ownership right related only to military service.

But Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman, a conservative icon, wrote for a 2 to 1 panel that the amendment provides an individual right just as other provisions of the Bill of Rights do. And because handguns fall under the definition of "arms," he wrote, the District may not ban them.

To some the decision was not surprising. Even a small but growing group of liberal constitutional scholars -- "against my political instincts," in the words of Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe -- have endorsed the individual-right view.

The District had received an unlikely lifeline from the Bush administration, which told the court that the amendment provides an individual right but that the appeals court erred in deciding that the District's ban was automatically unconstitutional.

"If adopted by this court," wrote Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who earlier this month left his post, "such an analysis could cast doubt on the constitutionality of existing federal legislation prohibiting the possession of certain firearms, including machineguns."

The court's last examination of the amendment was in 1939, when it ruled in U.S. v. Miller that a sawed-off shotgun transported across state lines by a bootlegger was not what the amendment's authors had in mind when they were protecting arms needed for military service.

By Robert Barnes

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 26, 2008; 1:06 PM

The Supreme Court, splitting along ideological lines, today declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns for self-defense, striking down the District of Columbia's ban on handgun ownership as unconstitutional.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee quickly put out a statement endorsing the decision, calling it a "landmark victory" for Second Amendment rights. "Today's ruling . . . makes clear that other municipalities like Chicago that have banned handguns have infringed on the constitutional rights of Americans," McCain said.

Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), the Democrats' all but certain nominee, also issued a statement saying that "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures.

"The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe."

In a statement on its web site, the National Rifle Association's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre called the decision "a great moment in American history. It vindicates individual Americans all over this country who have always known that this is their freedom worth protecting."

The lawyers challenging the District's 32-year-old law were able to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last year to do what no other federal appeals court had ever done: strike down a local gun-control ordinance on Second Amendment grounds.

The amendment says that "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," and all but one of the circuits that had considered the issue previously had interpreted it as providing a gun-ownership right related only to military service.

But Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman, a conservative icon, wrote for a 2 to 1 panel that the amendment provides an individual right just as other provisions of the Bill of Rights do. And because handguns fall under the definition of "arms," he wrote, the District may not ban them.

To some the decision was not surprising. Even a small but growing group of liberal constitutional scholars -- "against my political instincts," in the words of Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe -- have endorsed the individual-right view.

The District had received an unlikely lifeline from the Bush administration, which told the court that the amendment provides an individual right but that the appeals court erred in deciding that the District's ban was automatically unconstitutional.

"If adopted by this court," wrote Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who earlier this month left his post, "such an analysis could cast doubt on the constitutionality of existing federal legislation prohibiting the possession of certain firearms, including machineguns."

The court's last examination of the amendment was in 1939, when it ruled in U.S. v. Miller that a sawed-off shotgun transported across state lines by a bootlegger was not what the amendment's authors had in mind when they were protecting arms needed for military service.

By Debbi Wilgoren and Robert Barnes

Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 26, 2008; 1:23 PM

Writing for the majority in the 5 to 4 decision, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the provision -- known as the "Millionaire's Amendment" -- imposes "an unprecedented penalty on any candidate who robustly exercises" his or her First Amendment right to self-finance a campaign.

The law, Alito wrote, forces candidates who spend their own money to "shoulder a special and potentially significant burden" for making that choice, and they become subject to a "scheme of discriminatory contribution limits."

The burden imposed by allowing one candidate to receive outside contributions triple the amount others may receive "is not justified by any governmental interest in eliminating corruption or the perception of corruption," Alito wrote.

Congress's stated goal in the 2002 legislation, known formally as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, was to combat the perception that wealthy, self-financed candidates could "buy" a congressional seat. If a House candidate spends $350,000 or more of his own money, for example, the law allows his or her opponents to accept campaign contributions in excess of normal limits and to receive additional financial help from political parties.

New York industrialist Jack Davis, a Democrat who spent millions of dollars on two unsuccessful congressional attempts and is ready to spend $3 million on another, challenged the law. He said it violates his First and Fifth Amendment rights and protects incumbents by discouraging wealthy challengers.

Davis v. Federal Election Commission is the latest constitutional challenge to what is best known as the McCain-Feingold Act after its chief authors, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.).

Justices upheld key elements of the act in 2003, but last year the reconstituted court, led by Roberts, loosened a critical part of the law regarding corporate and union financing of advertising.

Although it is called the "Millionaire's Amendment," the provision kicks in when a House candidate spends $350,000 of his or her money. It imposes additional reporting requirements, allows the candidate's opponent to solicit three times the normal limit of $2,300 per contributor and grants greater spending by the opponent's party. There are similar provisions for Senate races.

Davis and Washington lawyer Stanley M. Brand believe the provision discriminates against candidates who prefer to fund their own campaigns in order to "convey a message of independence from lobbyists, large donors and other political 'insiders.' "

But a panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia disagreed and last year granted summary judgment in favor of the FEC.

The lower court held that Davis's challenge "fails at the outset" because the amendment "places no restriction on a candidate's ability to spend unlimited amounts of his personal wealth to communicate his message to voters, nor does it reduce the amount of money he is able to raise from contributors."

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, representing the FEC and Congress, said in his brief to the Supreme Court that the provision is a "modest and constitutionally appropriate attempt to counteract the perception that a candidate who is wealthy enough can buy a seat in Congress."

But the high court, in today's decision, said the Buckley ruling offers no legal basis for the government's position that it is a "legitimate government objective" to try to level the playing field for wealthy and less-wealthy candidates by having each follow a different set of donation rules.

A dissenting opinion written by Stevens called the "Millionaire's Amendment" a "good-faith effort by Congress to regulate, within the bounds of the Constitution, one particularly pernicious feature of many contemporary political campaigns." Stevens called the law "modest, sensible and plainly constitutional."

Stevens, along with Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter, joined with the majority to agree with one part of Alito's opinion: that Davis had standing in the case and that it was appropriate for the high court to rule.