Spitzer’s Ethics and Hevesi’s
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The attorney general of New York State, Eliot Spitzer, has been getting some grief lately from our friends at the Wall Street Journal for his efforts to chisel down the pay that the New York Stock Exchange had agreed to pay its president, Richard Grasso.
Lost in the tumult has been an admirable example of a government official adhering to a high ethical standard. That came with Mr. Spitzer’s decision, as reported in Friday’s New York Times, to return $21,000 in campaign contributions from real estate mogul Donald Trump, because Mr. Spitzer’s office was deciding a dispute involving a $643,775 down payment for a Trump condominium.”Unlike many other elected officials, Mr. Spitzer does not accept campaign contributions from individuals or organizations that have pending business with his office,” a Spitzer aide, Darren Dopp, told the Times.
What it all reminded us of was the matter we have been writing about recently involving the New York state comptroller, Alan Hevesi. Mr. Hevesi, as these columns have reported, has received a to tal of at least $121,800 in contributions from two law firms and individuals and committees with ties to them. At the same time he is overseeing litigation and negotiating legal fees for a case under which the same two law firms stand to share a $144.5 million legal fee for a case that didn’t even go to trial. That’s the one in which the class-action lawyers wrested a $2.65 billion settlement from Citigroup on behalf of shareholders and bondholders of WorldCom. If Mr. Hevesi adhered to Mr. Spitzer’s ethical standards, he’d return the $121,800 in campaign contributions. Or it’d be fine with us, too, if he kept the campaign contributions but removed the state from the litigation.
Mr. Hevesi has so far been unpersuaded by our editorials on this topic. Maybe he’d be more inclined to listen to Mr. Spitzer. The attorney general could take Mr. Hevesi aside and explain to the comptroller the ethical issues at stake. If they apply to a $21,000 donation and a $643,775 down payment, there’s no reason they shouldn’t also apply to $121,800 in contributions and a $144.5 million legal fee.
