Eliot Spitzer
AKA Eliot Laurence Spitzer

Born: 10-Jun-1959
Birthplace: Bronx, NY

Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Government, Attorney
Party Affiliation: Democratic

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Governor of New York

Eliot Spitzer's father is an Austrian emigrant and a self-made real estate
magnate. As a boy, he attended private schools, and then he went on to
Princeton and Harvard, before joining a successful law firm. He stayed for
only two years, then took a job working for Manhattan District Attorney
Robert M. Morgenthau. Spitzer spent six years as Assistant DA, investigating
and prosecuting organized crime. In 1992, Spitzer's work toppled the Gambino
Crime Family's control of Manhattan's trucking and garment businesses. Then
he quit, and went to work for another law firm. In 1994 he ran for Attorney
General, and lost. In 1998, he ran again and narrowly won. His father
underwrote his candidacies to the tune of about $9 million.

In early 2002, an aide in Spitzer's office showed him a stack of internal
emails from Merrill Lynch, where company executives blithely acknowledged
that they had downgraded stock from a company, not because there was
anything wrong with the stock, but because that company didn't do business
with Merrill Lynch. Spitzer's office opened an investigation that showed
that Merrill Lynch was systematically doctoring its "advice" to investors,
to shore up the stock giant's investment arms and to kick companies that
didn't play ball. The settlement cost Merrill Lynch $100 million, and its
reputation.

Spitzer then led a multi-state effort to investigate and prosecute other
investment brokers and bankers. Those fines and penalties totaled about $1.4
billion. It sounds like a job for the federal government's Securities and
Exchange Commission, but the SEC was sound asleep, and Wall Street is in New
York, which made it Spitzer's jurisdiction, too. The SEC "missed what was
obvious", he said. "They should have know about this before I did."

In November 2002, Spitzer was invited to speak at the Institutional Investor
Dinner, an annual awards event for the very sort of stock and investment
schmoozers he'd been going after. He accepted the invitation, and from the
podium basically called these people on their shit:

These are the Institutional Investor Awards, and thus reflect criteria
important to institutional investors, who prize analysts' accessibility,
their insights and their ability to uncover a valuable piece of information
about a company or sector, and their access to management. What these awards
do not measure is the performance of analysts' buy, sell and hold
recommendations. I am not here to question those criteria used by
institutional investors or to challenge their application. But since my
focus has been on protecting individual investors, I want to call attention
to the industry's use of these awards, which is in need of reform.
Although tonight's all-stars are named by and for institutional investors,
the brokerage houses tout these awards to the investing public together with
the analysts' stock recommendations. The message being broadcast to
individual investors by linking the awards to stock picking is deceptively
simple: follow the "smart" or "professional" institutional money and act on
these recommendations. That message is simply deceptive.

It implies that tonight's awards measure the performance of the buy, sell
and hold recommendations offered. In fact, tonight's awards do no such
thing. Those in attendance tonight already know this. But the investing
public is not aware that the awards don't reflect the performance of your
stock recommendations..."

The conflicts of interest Spitzer uncovered in the stock market were no
secret in the industry, or to reporters who cover the industry. These were
standard-issue conflicts of interest that had existed for decades, but
Spitzer came at them with a ferocity that stunned the business world.
Spitzer sees himself as a stalwart defender of capitalism -- rooting out the
guilty, so that people will know businesses are on the up-and-up. Confidence
in the stock market, or any business, is increased, not diminished, argues
Spitzer, by seeing crooked businessmen hauled away in handcuffs. Spitzer
blasts the notion of laissez faire economics, that free markets will correct
most bad business practices by making those companies that are guilty of bad
behavior less profitable. "They've said that intervention by [...]
government is wrong but they haven't taken into account that markets can
have structural flaws."

Environmental polluters are one of Spitzer's favorite examples: They're
rarely punished by the market, and under George W. Bush, rarely punished by
regulators -- which means that society at large pays the price for
pollution. Spitzer has demanded that the federal Environmental Protection
Agency turn over files of 50 power plants EPA had investigated, but never
prosecuted. He wants to prosecute the power plants for violations of the
Clean Air Act if they're guilty. Not surprisingly, there are few fans of
Spitzer in leadership positions at the EPA.

Spitzer led a coalition of 41 states in a price-fixing lawsuit against the
five largest music companies and three largest music retailers. The
companies settled, coughing up $143.1 million.

Spitzer sent chills down the spines of anti-abortion activists when he
subpoenaed several "crisis pregnancy centers" -- clinics that offer
anti-abortion counseling to pregnant women. Spitzer suggested that these
projects may have violated the law by "misrepresenting the services they
provide" and "diagnosing and advising persons on medical options" without a
license.

Spitzer has gone after Wal-Mart, for selling toy guns virtually
indistinguishable from real guns, which puts kids at risk of being shot by
police officers. He's gone after WorldCom's former head Bernard Ebbers and
four other telecom muckety-mucks on fraud charges. He's gone after drug
giants GlaxoSmithKline and Pharmacia for price-fixing. He's uncovered
crookedness in mutual funds markets.

In 2004, Spitzer pronounced that New York law does not allow same-sex
couples to marry in New York, but said the state should recognize same-sex
marriages legally performed elsewhere. He also said the law may be "flawed",
and said he personally thinks gay couples should have the equal right to
marry.

Spitzer has been criticized, deservedly, for not requiring a straightforward
apology from Merrill Lynch. That may sound like nitpicking, but when
companies publicly "admit no wrongdoing", it makes it harder for investors
and customers to successfully sue. The whopping fines he's collected, even
$100 million at a crack, amount to chump change for companies as huge as
Merrill Lynch.

Spitzer has also lost plenty of cases, even high-profile prosecutions: "If
you succeed all the time, you're probably picking battles that are too
easy." In 2006 he ran for Governor of New York, winning in a landslide with
about 69%% of the vote.

Father: Bernard Spitzer (real estate developer)
Mother: Anne Spitzer (literature teacher, Marymount Manhattan College)
Wife: Silda A. Wall (charity executive, Children for Children)
Daughter: (b. 1990)
Daughter: (b. 1992)
Daughter: (b. 1994)

High School: Horace Mann School, Riverdale, NY (1977)
University: Princeton University (1981)
Law School: Harvard Law School (1984)

Governor of New York (2007-)
Attorney General of New York (1999-2007)
Law Clerk for Robert W. Sweet
Skadden, Arps Associate (1982-94)
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Associate
Friends of Hillary
John Kerry for President
New Leadership for America PAC
World Technology Network

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