'TOO LATE'

Meanwhile, Saxon told The Miami Herald that starting Tuesday, he's following a new policy to stop granting broker's licenses to anyone convicted of a felony in the past seven years and to deny any applicant found guilty of fraud, dishonest dealing, breach of trust or money laundering.

Saxon said those standards are similar to measures in a sweeping federal housing bill that has been passed by Congress and is expected to be signed into law by the president.

Sink, the Cabinet member whose office has the most interaction with the OFR, said she thinks Saxons proposal is "too little, too late, " and renewed her call for his resignation. "We could have been doing a lot more before we got to this point today, " she said.

Speaking from the dais to a packed hearing room, Sink said there are legal provisions that could have allowed Saxon's agency to issue sanctions against those who committed mortgage fraud and that the agency "could have been denying more" licenses to questionable applicants.

Saxon denied there were breakdowns at his agency and said he would step down if he believed there were. "Im very glad the Cabinet decided to go forward with an independent review of our operations, " he said after the meeting. "I feel strongly that once they do, theyll find our office acted appropriately."

Although top officials in Saxon's agency have repeatedly refused to press for the licensing of loan originators -- people who do the same job as mortgage brokers -- Saxon is now saying his office wants to license them.

The Miami Herald found more than 5,000 loan originators with criminal records operating in Florida.

While the Cabinet investigates Saxon's agency, other state leaders are calling for their own probes.

SOUTH FLORIDA

State Sen. Gwen Margolis, D-Bay Harbor Islands, is asking for the Miami-Dade Mortgage Fraud Task Force to conduct an investigation into why so many local people with criminal histories were able to obtain mortgage-broker licenses. "It is our responsibility to make sure that these criminals cannot harm the community anymore, " she wrote in a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, who started the task force.

State Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami, said he wants a House select committee to look into the agency's licensing practices, including questions over why Saxon's agency failed to do federal criminal-background checks until 2008, despite a law requiring the checks two years earlier.

Miami Herald staff writer Matthew Haggman contributed to this report.