Talk:Mel Watt

Audit the Fed
The recent addition of material on the Audit the Fed issue has a few problems. First it is not neutrally described and second it doesn't utilize the footnote syntax present in the rest of the article. Thane Eichenauer (talk) 23:17, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I've fixed those issues. I took out the section on his financial contributors; it needs to be reported in a reliable source first. Here's the section in question:
 * "American Banking News reports that,


 * "Especially troubling about the gutting of the bill is the connections the Democrat Watt has with the banking industry. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) has its headquarters in his congressional district, which is based in Charlotte, but worse, the majority of contributions to Watt’s campaign has come from corporations in the real estate, finance and insurance industry.


 * Watt’s largest contributors included American Express (NYSE: AXP), Wachovia, Bank of America and the American Bankers Association. Altogether the financial industry donated over $217,109 to Watt, which was over 35 percent of the overall contributions he received." "

--Gloriamarie (talk) 03:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
 * That information is available from OpenSecrets.org. It's all public record. 24.6.159.76 (talk) 01:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Perhaps, but as it stands it makes up a very large portion of the article in relation to actual media coverage. The only reputable news source referenced is just reporting on Ron Paul's latest adventure. Nevard (talk) 04:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Fannie, Freddie implications
The article implies strong correlation between Fannie and Freddy oversight and financial crisis of 2008-etc. This may be speculative; biased. Mydogtrouble (talk) 20:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request on 15 December 2011
Addition for the controversies section; attempted to be as neutral as possible, includes citation.

Support of SOPA
On 2011-12-15, Watt voted 'yea' in favor of the Stop Online Piracy Act after a demonstration of having no knowledge the difference in legal definitions between 'copyright infringement' and 'theft'.

Cynoclast (talk) 19:05, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I wouldn't include it. The wording is awful, not neutral, it's soapboxing and citation not a neutral reliable source. It doesn't even say what you propose. Just a promotional external link. Don't think we can really say he voted for it since the bill is just now starting to come out of committee. Stop trying to push your agenda here. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 23:32, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality: good. Being an anal retentive wikipedia Nazi: lol. "Stop trying to push your agenda" - stop being an uptight moron. Don't include it, fine. But don't be a dick while arguing against its inclusion, especially if you intend to imply the other person is being a dick about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.239.29.29 (talk) 15:08, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Hear, hear! Also, he has voted for SOPA to come out of committee, which indicates that he most likely would support it becoming law. --Special Operative MACAVITYDebrief me 16:09, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * He probably would support it, yes, since he is a co-sponsor of the bill, but the way the suggestion was phrased was just completely wrong for Wikipedia. I'm sorry if you think I was being over-zealous in my criticism of the suggestion. It's just that this article and a few others were slammed with vandalism or non-neutral additions of SOPA-related info around the same time period. It is exactly why this article was semi-protected. This is kind of a moot point now since info on SOPA has been included. I haven't taken that out, although I think that paragraph could stand to be reworded. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 21:34, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I included that information in the hopes that it would appease most people who were critical about SOPA. I think that it may have helped to keep some vandalism from happening. How would you suggest rewording it? 199.204.125.3 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:58, 20 December 2011 (UTC).

Edit request on 16 December 2011
attorney should be changed to Attorney

Predze (talk) 12:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Padlock-silver-slash2.svg Not done: is not required for edits to semi-protected, unprotected pages, or pending changes protected pages.  Baseball   Watcher  19:45, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems very one sided
This article reads more like an article promoting negative points of the Mayor. There is no reason or indication why the quotation about freddie and fannie are included. This article needs clean up and needs to fit standards better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.169.99 (talk) 02:15, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Watt was never mayor of anything. I agree that it appears more slanted and have been trying to make it more neutral. I understand it is one sided. However, please don't add comments into the article. That paragraph was probably left over from some previous re-organization. I will find where it belongs and move it. Thank you for your interest. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 02:54, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100225143923/http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/W000207/ to http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/w000207/

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External links modified
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I have just modified 3 external links on Mel Watt. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071024030228/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0714-11.htm to http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0714-11.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101011182238/http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/10/15/chamber-of-commerce-deploys-former-government-officials-to-lobby-on-financial-regulation/ to http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/10/15/chamber-of-commerce-deploys-former-government-officials-to-lobby-on-financial-regulation/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101018195049/http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/10/09/top-financial-services-committee-members-rely-heavily-on-finance-campaign-contributions/ to http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/10/09/top-financial-services-committee-members-rely-heavily-on-finance-campaign-contributions/

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Racial gerrymandering section
This article has a problem with WP:CSECTION. The items under "Controversies" should be integrated into to the rest of the article if possible. For starters, the section titled "Racial gerrymandering"--I'm not seeing how this is a "Controversy" vis-à-vis Watt. He may have benefited from gerrymandering, but the New York Times source that we have doesn't say that he was involved in the drawing of the districts. If we keep this information, I'd suggest we put it in the elections section as a historical fact about his district, but putting it under a "Controversies" section doesn't seem accurate. Marquardtika (talk) 05:41, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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CORRECTION - needs action - current occupation is incorrect
I am not qualified to make the edit so I'll leave this for someone with topic knowledge and expertise.

He has departed this role - announced 12/2018, effective 1/2019 Official government source: https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2018/nr-occ-2018-140.html

There is also a sexual harassment controversy in 2018 if that warrants inclusion: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/27/federal-housing-chief-sexual-harassment-investigation-714779

Further, there was tumult including contemplation of impeachment at the end of his term, if worthy of inclusion: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/accuser-law-firm-trying-to-get-mel-watt-fired-before-retirement/275-af662b39-8b10-4e9c-9a84-ba4f0c124e502600:6C56:6600:1EA7:E898:2EDB:3FB1:44E4 (talk) 23:51, 30 January 2019 (UTC)