Kamala Harris stands with the voters of California

Even as Occupy Wall Street protests have turned America's attention to the economic inequality that has soared as banks have come to dominate our economy, those banks have been quietly working to cut themselves still one more sweet deal. Whether they get away with it may ultimately depend on California Atty. Gen.Kamala D. Harris.

The deal — which the 50 state attorneys general and the Obama administration have been haggling over with our biggest banks for more than a year — would require the banks to pay roughly $25 billion to certain beleaguered or former homeowners, chiefly as compensation for the "robosigning" abuses the banks engaged in as they zealously sought to foreclose on hundreds of thousands of homes. In return, the states would agree not to pursue claims against the banks for whatever fraud and abuse they may have committed in originating dubious mortgages.

This get-out-of-jail-cheap card (the five banks involved in the talks — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase,Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Ally Financial — can afford the $25 billion) would also let the banks escape liability for misrepresenting those mortgages to the investors on whom they unloaded them.