Politicians Got Parties at NYSE Fundraisers Picked Up in Grasso's 8 Years as Chairman By Kathleen Day and Ben White
Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, September 26, 2003; Page A01
As a political fundraising event, it wasn't a bonanza. About 50 people gathered in the afternoon of July 21 for a light buffet and wrote checks for Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.).
What made the event noteworthy was its location: the members' club on the seventh floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The Dodd fundraiser was one of dozens that have been held at the exchange in the past few years, many of them facilitated by Dick Grasso, who was the NYSE chairman, or the exchange's Washington lobbyists.
Many companies and organizations host campaign events, but the Big Board is in a unique position as a political fundraiser. It has a vigorous agenda in Washington, including preserving its dual role as the operator of a business for its member trading firms and being their front-line regulator on behalf of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The exchange's officials have routinely participated in helping raise donations from the very floor brokers, specialists and clerks over whom they hold federally sanctioned regulatory authority.
"They say, 'We need X number of dollars for Congressman Joe Smith, so you write a check to Joe Smith. I don't know who these guys are most of the time,' " said a stock trader who works on the exchange floor and attended the Dodd event.
The pilgrimage of members of Congress, governors and mayors to Wall Street to raise money is not new; the NYSE has hosted fundraisers for years. But the tempo of the events stepped up markedly during Grasso's eight years as head of the Big Board, sources said. After Grasso's resignation over the controversy surrounding his $187.5 million pay package, regulators are scrutinizing the conflicts inherent in the dual roles played by the exchange.
"You can't serve two masters and be faithful to both," said Peter J. Wallison, a Reagan administration official and financial market expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "There's something wrong with using government-sanctioned power to facilitate fundraising for members of Congress or other elected officials. . . . How would we feel if the SEC invited in a group of investment bankers and created a situation where members of Congress could solicit them for funds?"
continued http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2443-2003Sep25.html
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Quis custodiet istos custodes?
"Who will watch the watchers?" ~ "Who is to guard the guards themselves?"
-- Juvenal's Satires, VI. 347, circa 110 AD