"Why are the Dems Caving in on Cox?"

[GreenPartyVoter]

In a better world, next week's Senate confirmation hearings on the nomination of Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission would be the Democratic Party's finest hour. The hearings offer a perfect opportunity to decry Wall Street's looting of Main Street and to put the GOP on trial for creating the conditions under which corporate criminals flourished.

Instead, Democrats have been eerily silent on Cox, a right-wing Republican who wrote a 1995 law making it harder for investors to take corporate swindlers to court. Cox's Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which became law over President Clinton's veto, has been blamed for allowing some of the nation's worst financial scandals — including those at Enron and WorldCom — to proceed unchecked. The law let corporate executives off the hook for exactly the kind of utterly misleading statements Enron Chief Executive Kenneth Lay made to keep his company's stock price artificially high.

Indeed, Cox — who President Bush has tapped as the best possible choice to be Wall Street's top cop — is the poster child for how laissez faire, country club Republicanism took trillions out of the pockets of Americans. If the Democratic Party can't find it within itself to stand against putting Americans' life savings in Cox's hands, the party doesn't stand for anything.

Consider his record: As a congressman, Cox voted repeatedly in the interests of Wall Street investment houses to undermine conflict-of-interest standards protecting investors and pension plans. He has voted against post-Enron proposals that would require executives to certify financial statements, strip bonuses from CEOs who falsify statements, and stop stock analysts from holding shares in the companies they cover (although he did ultimately vote for the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform bill when it became a fait accompli).

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0725-22.htm

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act

Is the Poster Child of what went wrong.

[montanacowboy]

2. BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THE DEMS DO BEST

CAVE IN, KISS ASS, RETREAT, APOLOGIZE

DON'T LOOK FOR ANYTHING PROGRESSIVE TO EVER COME FROM THIS BUNCH - THEY LOVE THEIR CORPORATE MASTERS AS MUCH AS THE REPUKES DO

WHY SHOULD THEY WANT TO CHANGE ANYTHING? THE SAME HAND FEEDS BOTH HEADS OF THE MONSTER