Holding Political Candidates' Feet to the Fire
on Corporate Crime
by Ralph Nader
Dissident Voice
October 4, 2002
When the revelations of crime and deception poured out of the
executive suites of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and other corporations earlier this
year, politicians-particularly sitting members of the Senate and the House of
Representatives-unleashed a blizzard of news releases to denounce corporate
crime.
Never mind that many of these same politicians long had been
neck-deep in schemes to weaken (if not outright eliminate) regulation and
remove the regulatory cops needed to uncover and stop the kind of corporate
shenanigans that destroyed the Enrons and left thousands of workers without
jobs and pensions-and investors holding worthless stock of bankrupt companies.
The politicians were betting that some well-honed news
releases and a few speeches expressing outrage back home would be enough to
take voters' minds off the scandals and the human misery left in the wake of
the corporate excesses.
Unfortunately, it is probably a good bet. Too often in the
past, that has been the case-a quick outburst of anger and concern and then
back to business as usual.
When hundreds of savings and loans failed in the 1980s
followed by the greatest rash of bank collapses since the depression, there was
a national uproar and a string of Congressional investigations. Some regulatory
reforms did get through Congress, but less than a decade later the financial
industry was back on Capitol Hill demanding deregulation once again. Despite
the recent financial disasters, Congress agreed to the new deregulation in
1999-and many of the financial combinations created by that deregulation are
intertwined in the current corporate scandals.
Are we about to repeat this same sad cycle in dealing with
the current corporate fraud and crime wave that has cost millions of Americans
trillions of dollars? Will this year's headlines, a few limited reforms and a
tap on the wrist be the end result-with no real protections in place for the
public, investors, workers and the economy? We should not allow such a result.
We need to prove that our political and economic system is better than that. We
can make lasting-effective-change as citizens. This time, we need to keep the
issues on the front burner until we have true reforms, not fake facsimiles that
do nothing but lull the public into a false sense of security.
As part of that effort, I am asking candidates for the U. S.
Senate and the House of Representatives this year to sign a 10-point pledge
which contains provisions that will put teeth in the crackdown on corporate
crime. The pledge includes a promise that the candidate will support
legislation which would give shareholders the right to democratically nominate
and elect the board of directors and approve all major business decisions such
as mergers and acquisitions above $1 billion in value and the compensation
packages of top executives. The pledge would also promise support for a ban on
corporate criminals obtaining government contracts and banning government
contracts for companies that relocate their headquarters offshore to avoid
taxes.
Signers would also pledge to strengthen pension reforms and
rein in excessive pay for corporate chief executives as well as establishing a
federally-chartered non-profit Financial Consumers Association joined by
millions of American investors that would represent consumers before
legislative and regulatory bodies.
The pledge also contains a promise to repeal the notorious
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (1995) which shields the aiders and
abetters of corporate crime, such as accounting and law firms, from civil
liability. The pledge also calls on signers to support the regulation of
derivatives trading.
Candidates would also pledge to support the establishment of
a Congressional Commission on Corporate Power to explore various legal and
economic proposals that would rein in unaccountable giant global corporations.
The commission would seek ways to improve on the current state corporate
chartering system and propose ways to correct the unfair legal status of
corporations such as the doctrine of corporate personhood.
In addition to holding political candidates' feet to the
fire on corporate crime, we need to continue to energize and enlist citizens in
the effort to crackdown on corporate crime. An upcoming effort in mobilizing
citizen support will be a rally on Wall Street on Friday, October 4.
The rally, sponsored by Democracy Rising is designed to
focus attention to ongoing corporate crime and to propose remedies to help
shareholders, taxpayers, workers and consumers. The rally will be on the steps
of City Hall directly facing the New York Stock Exchange. Reformers are going
to take the issue right to the New York Stock Exchange.
Citizens across the nation have the power to change corporate behavior if they will stick with the issue over the coming weeks and into the next Congress. We will be pushing forward with the "The Candidate's Pledge To Crackdown on Corporate Crime," but citizens should raise the issue of corporate crime directly with Congressional candidates in their hometowns and demand that they produce more than news releases and speeches. This time we need to get real reform before the issues fade and the politicians find another convenient rug under which the crimes can be swept.
Ralph
Nader is America’s leading consumer advocate. He is the founder of
numerous public interest groups including Public
Citizen, and has twice run for President as a Green Party candidate. His
latest book is Crashing the Party: How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for
President (St. Martin’s Press, 2002)