Larry Ribstein's been on a bit of a toot lately about politicians whose political campaigns couldn't comply with SOX. In Hillary Clinton, corporate executive, for example, he wrote:
Recently I suggested that John Edwards ought to be held to SOX 404-type standards with respect to a company from which he received significant financial support. Now it seems similar questions may arise for Hillary Clinton. Today's Wall Street Journal notes:
Six members of the Paw family, each listing the house at 41 Shelbourne Ave. as their residence, have donated a combined $45,000 to the Democratic senator from New York since 2005, for her presidential campaign, her Senate re-election last year and her political action committee. In all, the six Paws have donated a total of $200,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005, election records show. That total ranks the house with residences in Greenwich, Conn., and Manhattan's Upper East Side among the top addresses to donate to the Democratic presidential front- runner over the past two years, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of donations listed with the Federal Election Commission.
It isn't obvious how the Paw family is able to afford such political largess. ...
The Paws' political donations closely track donations made by Norman Hsu, a wealthy New York businessman in the apparel industry who once listed the Paw home as his address, according to public records. Mr. Hsu is one of the top fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. He has hosted or co- hosted some of her most prominent money-raising events. ...
If it turns out there have been campaign law violations (there's no direct evidence of this yet) shouldn't Clinton take the heat for her campaign's ignoring the "red lights"? Shouldn't candidates have internal controls in place to catch problems like these? After all, the candidate is the CEO of her campaign. I'm no great friend of federal election laws, but since we do have these laws, shouldn't the candidates be held responsible for compliance?
In general, I suspect that if similar standards applied to politicians as apply to corporate executives business regulation might make a lot more sense than it does now.
He's got a point.
In More on SOX-free campaign finance, Larry wrote:
It seems the big but suspect Clinton donor I discussed recently (who gave to many Democrats' campaigns) was also facing criminal charges in California. Today's WSJ notes:
his saga show[s] that leading Democrats were willing to embrace him -- and his sudden, tremendous success in gathering funds -- apparently without asking a lot of questions.
Clinton and the other candidates are lucky they don't have to face questions about their internal controls.
Again, he's got a point.
Update: The NYT now reports:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton?s campaign said yesterday that it would give to charity $23,000 it had received from a prominent Democratic donor, and review thousands of dollars more that he had raised, after learning that the authorities in California had a warrant for his arrest stemming from a 1991 fraud case.
