Corporate Governance

SEC Chairmen and the Presidential Election

By J. Robert Brown

The WSJ reported yesterday that three former Chairmen of the SEC (Ruder, Donaldson, and Levitt) have endorsed Barak Obama.  In other words, they are not endorsing John McCain. 

Most interesting is that two of the endorsing chairmen were appointed by Republicans (Ruder by Reagan and Donaldson by Bush Jr).  Whatever the polls say about the close nature of the election (McCain and Obama are running almost even), this type of endorsement does not bode well for the McCain campaign.  It suggests that those connected to business interests (Chairman Levitt has a long history on Wall Street, including running the American Stock Exchange, Chairman Donaldson ran the NYSE) are gravitating towards Obama. 

Chairman Levitt, by the way, was in Denver last week for the Rocky Mountain Securities Conference.  He, as usual, gave opinionated and blunt remarks that demonstrate his continued belief in the mission of the SEC.  When I asked him if he thought the current budget request by the SEC was adequate for the Agency to perform its regulatory mission, he gave a one word answer:  No. 

Full post as published by The Race to the Bottom on May 15, 2008 (boomark / email).