Dole Introduces Deregulation Proposal; Bear Stearns Contributes $2,500 Six Days Later

Three Days Later, Bear Stearns Collapses, Admits FBI Investigation

September 30, 2008

GREENSBORO, N.C. – A vocal proponent of financial deregulation, Elizabeth Dole, introduced a bill to loosen reporting requirements under Sarbanes-Oxley for financial institutions in March 2008, just months before our financial markets crumbled. Six days later, she received a check from Bear Stearns’ PAC for $2,500. Three days after that, Bear Stearns collapsed, another step in the beginning of the financial dominos that continues even while Congress discusses a massive $700 billion bailout proposal.

After the collapse of Enron and WorldCom, Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley, which increased companies’ accounting controls to increase transparency. Sections 302 and 404 of the bill made it mandatory that CEOs/CFOs, as well as outside auditors, certify that the institutions internal accounting was correct. For years, Dole – and President Bush, with whom she’s voted with 92% of the time – sought to loosen the regulations contained in Section 302 and 404. At a Banking Committee in March, a rare instance that Dole spoke up, instead of advocating for working families, Dole sought to ensure “businesses and shareholders received a benefit from” the reporting guidelines in Sarbanes-Oxley.

The next day, Dole introduced a bill to make the mandatory CEO/CFO and outside auditor certification voluntary instead of mandatory, loosening regulations on special interests, while casting aside her constituents’ best interests. Dole’s efforts were characterized by Accountancy Age, a financial trade publication, as “supremely naïve.”

“It strikes me that it is supremely naïve to believe you should call for a cut in regulation for banks at a time when the judgment of those who run the banks doesn’t appear to be something they’d shout about,” wrote Accountancy Age Editor Gavin Hinks.

Six days after she introduced her bill, Bear Stearns’ PAC gave Elizabeth Dole $2,500. Three days after that, Bear Stearns collapsed, while under the scrutiny of an FBI investigation for accounting fraud, among other things.

Since taking her seat on the Banking Committee nearly six years ago, Dole has been silent at more than 60 committee hearings – asking no questions, making no comments. She voted against a bipartisan, House-passed housing reform bill, choosing instead to co-sponsor her own purely partisan version that only garnered 4 other cosponsors, all Republicans, and never saw the light of day. This past weekend, the Winston-Salem Journal reported that Dole visited North Carolina for a total of 13 days in 2006, and has spent approximately 13% of her time in the state since being elected.

“We already knew that Elizabeth Dole was ineffective and silent in Washington, and absentee in North Carolina, but now we also know that when she was working, it was to the detriment of working families in North Carolina who are currently being taken for a ride because of the greed and selfishness on Wall Street and in Washington,” said state Senator and U.S. Senate Candidate Kay Hagan (D-Guilford). “Given the choice between working for her constituents or working for the special interests, it’s really no contest for Elizabeth Dole. North Carolinians deserve someone advocating for them every day, every week, every month and every year – they can’t afford anything less.”

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