The story of the foreclosure of Long Beach Democrat Laura Richardson’s Sacramento home is a tale of a real estate market gone sour. It is also an illustration of how far many candidates will go to seek elected office, even if it means quite literally mortgaging their own financial future.

While being elevated to Congress in a 2007 special election, Richardson apparently stopped making payments on her new Sacramento home, and eventually walked away from it, leaving nearly $600,000 in unpaid loans and fees.

Richardson’s decision to let the house slip into foreclosure was set in motion by an unlikely chain of events, only some of which had to do with Sacramento’s crumbling real estate market. Richardson was elected to the Assembly in November 2006, and purchased her new capital home two months later. But in April 2007, Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald succumbed to cancer, creating a Congressional vacancy in Richardson’s district.

Richardson declared her candidacy for the seat, and soon found herself locked in a hotly contested, and very expensive race for Congress against state Sen. Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach.

While her campaign heated up, Richardson’s house slipped into default. Richardson fell behind on her mortgage payments as she loaned her Congressional campaign $60,000 – money that has begun to be paid back to Richardson personally from her campaign account, according to records from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Lee ADDS: This is who is VOTING for a financial fix to mortgage problems! Giive me a break!