Now the ex-congressman is leading a mortgage industry offensive against secondary lending agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Last month Watts, 45, was named chairman of FM Policy Focus, a four-year-old coalition of trade groups and top lenders that wants Washington to tighten the regulatory reins on Fannie and Freddie. Besides drafting Watts, who was the fourth-ranking House Republican when he decided not to seek reelection last fall, the coalition changed its name from FM Watch, signifying a turn toward "heightened activism," says Watts. "It's not our responsibility to watch the FMs," he explains. "We are literally focusing on policy. We accept that there is a role for government-sponsored enterprises to play, but that role needs to be defined." FM Policy Focus, whose backers include units of General Electric, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, specifically aims to stop "mission creep" -- the GSEs' expansion into insurance, technology services and other areas allegedly outside the scope of their government charters. Watts wasted no time in going on the attack. He petitioned the Department of Housing and Urban Development to halt a Fannie Mae program called PaymentPower that permits borrowers to skip up to ten payments over the term of a mortgage. To Fannie, PaymentPower can ease a homeowner's burden in times of stress; to FM Policy Watch, it's an illegal incursion into direct lending and was never expressly approved by HUD. (A HUD spokesman says that the agency reviewed PaymentPower last year, but it has not yet responded to FM Policy Focus.) "We and the GSEs share a desire to make affordable home ownership available to the greatest number," says Watts, who's serving part-time at FM Policy Focus while running his public affairs consulting firm, J.C. Watts Cos. "But the GSEs should do what they were designed to do -- in the secondary market."