Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is the Attorney General for the State of New York.
He was born and raised in Riverdale, the Bronx, New York. He attended Princeton University and was elected chairman of the undergraduate student government, graduating in 1981. He then went to Harvard Law School, where he joined the Harvard Law Review. Here he met Silda Wall, his wife, with whom he has three daughters.
After law school, he clerked for Judge Robert W. Sweet in Manhattan, then joined the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He stayed there for less than two years before leaving to join the Manhattan district attorney's office.
He joined the staff of Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, where he spent six years pursuing organized crime. His biggest case came in 1992, when Spitzer led the investigation that ended the Gambino crime family's control of Manhattan's trucking and garment industry.
He left public service in 1992 to join the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, for a short time. He quit in 1994 to run for the office of New York State Attorney General.
Young and not well known, Spitzer finished fourth in the four person Democratic primary. He ran again in 1998, winning with an extremely narrow margin over incumbent Dennis Vacco. He was criticized for circumventing campaign finance laws, by borrowing $9 million from his father for these two elections.
In 2000, Spitzer served as New York's Presidential Elector at the Democratic National Convention.
Traditionally, state Attorneys General have pursued consumer rights cases. Often, this focuses on fraud that is local and unique, avoiding areas in which the federal government maintains oversight. Spitzer has gone after fraud that is nationwide and pervasive, stepping in where he saw federal actions lacking. Among his most famous efforts:
- He sued out-of-state power plants to reduce acid rain and smog in New York. Since these were out of his jurisdiction, he filed under the federal Clean Air Act.
- When he saw a lack of enforcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission over Wall Street, he went after Merrill Lynch for providing corrupt financial advice. This led to a settlement that severed ties between research and investment banking.
- Mutual fund companies allowed select clients to file late trades costing smaller clients money. This led to hundreds of millions in fines.
- Music publishers were holding back millions of dollars in royalties from artists, because they were unable to find them. Spitzer forced the publishers to locate and compensate those artists.
- Spitzer's office is investigating contingent commissions in the commercial insurance business. These are fees paid based on the volume and profitability of insurance business they generate. They provide an incentive for insurance brokers to recommend more costly insurance to their clients, presenting a confilct of interest.
- Subpeonas have been served on music industry giants in an investigation into payola, the illegal compensation of radio stations for playing certain songs.