LANSING — The Republican-controlled Senate this afternoon approved a three-bill package GOP members say balances the needs of lenders and borrowers in home foreclosures situations, but Democrats argue is a “sham.”

“Today Senate Republicans voted against giving people a chance to stay in their homes,” said Senate Democratic Floor Leader Buzz Thomas, a Detroit Democrat. “They chose protections for banks over protections for homeowners time and time again.”

The three-bill package was substituted last week for a three-bill package passed by the Democratic-controlled House the week before.

The House version would have forced lenders and borrowers to negotiate, and failing a negotiated loan modification when a borrower met the criteria created by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for loan modification, the foreclosure process would have be done through court hearings, rather than a simple advertisement.

The GOP authored bills stripped out the judicial foreclosure clause — a piece of the legislation Sen. Tupac Hunter, a Detroit Democrat, called a “hammer,” in the legislation.

Democrats made multiple attempts to amend the legislation, each failing on a party-line vote.

State Sen. Hansen Clarke, a Detroit Democrat, offered an amendment to create a moratorium for up to two years for certain foreclosures. The amendment would have had the moratorium reviewed, approved and ordered by a judge. The amendment failed on a 16-21 vote.

In an impassioned speech supporting his amendment, Clarke said: “The one regret I have as a legislator is I was not able to convince this body into action a year ago. I wasn’t able to convince you then it was a crisis. Our failure to act in this body. I regret our failure to resist special interest lobbying and for a change look out for the individual.”

In opposing the Clarke amendment, Sen. Randy Richardville, a Monroe Republican, said to support the Clarke idea would be “punitive” to the lending industry and “It would increase costs.”

Democrats also offered the following proposals, which also failed:

● Prevent lenders from suing borrowers for the difference between the foreclosure sale amount and the amount owed on the mortgage
● Require lenders to pay 1 percent of what they make on a foreclosure sale to a legal aid fund for foreclosure victims
● Require a lender to produce proof of ownership of the loan in question before proceeding with a foreclosure
● Impose a 1 percent fee on foreclosure sales to go to the Michigan State Housing Development Authority to provide housing counseling, and extending out the redemption period for two years for homes that qualify

“You see what these bills are. It’s typical Lansing legislation. We offer it because it sounds good to the public, when in fact we aren’t doing anything,” Clarke said. “These bills are damaging. They are shams. They provide a false hope of relief from foreclosure when none exists.”

The three Senate bills will now move into a conference committee consisting of members of both the House and the Senate, where the differences between the two chambers will be hammered out and then sent back to each chamber for approval or rejection.

Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer said if the bills don’t look like the House version, he encourages the bills be rejected.