Labor & Employment Law

Corporate Scandals No Bar to Campaign Cash for Whitman

By Mike Hall

Who says opposites attract? Two billionaire CEOs?California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and her deep-pocket angel, Henry Samueli?are pretty darn cozy. Both their companies have been targets of federal investigations, which looked into whether they were engaged in the same kind of shady Wall Street dealings that drove the economy into meltdown.

Last night, Samueli held a Whitman fundraiser at his beachside Corona Del Mar mansion, where $50,000 bought you four tickets to an ?intimate? and ?private? dinner with Whitman, four ?photo opportunities? and eight tickets to a cocktail reception. For the more budget-minded, a mere $25,900 scored you two dinner tickets, two photo-ops and six cocktail tickets.

Whitman schmoozed and mingled with the high-powered, wealthy Republican and corporate queen-makers who want to see Whitman and her Wall Street agenda ruling California. She also walked off with several million dollars?the official accounting is not yet available. Of course, this piles on top of the $100 million of her own money she?s already spent.

Samueli was involved in the nation?s largest stock backdating scandal while CEO at Broadcom (click here for more), and Whitman’s decision to use him as conduit for campaign cash, says Art Pulaksi, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, makes it

clear that Whitman is growing bolder in her shameless attempt to buy this election. The fact that she would consort with controversial corporate figures like Samueli to fatten her already bloated war chest shows a serious lapse in judgment.

Steve Smith on the California Labor Federation?s blog, Labor?s Edge, writes the pair ?have more in common than being billionaire CEOs? and draws the parallels between the two corporate insiders.  He also warns:

It?s pretty easy to imagine the enormous influence corporate types like Samueli would have in a Whitman administration. It?s also deeply troubling that it?s that very type of influence Wall Street had with George W. Bush, and we all know the end to that story. If we?ve learned anything from the economic meltdown caused by Wall Street?s greed, it?s that when corporate insiders get too close to government power, working people pay the price.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on August 24, 2010 (boomark / email).