So how did he win two terms as Attorney General of New York and a term as Governor?
My being a populist. Taking down prostiution rings. Taking up for the little guy by busting Merril Lynch, taking on the music industry etc.
Here some info about him and his record.
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.
Over half a century, the father of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer built an empire of glass and steel - and a fortune worth some $500 million - in the priciest precincts of Manhattan.
Bernard Spitzer, an 82-year-old engineer who changed the New York skyline without the flash of a Donald Trump, owns or holds a stake in at least 10 properties on or near the East Side, most of which he developed.
“They are all magnificent buildings,” he told the Daily News. “Five of them are on Central Park.”
Three of them have made or saved millions of dollars for his 47-year-old son, the attorney general - through gifts, asset sales and rental income - during his eight years in public office, a News examination found.
In one of those buildings, the politician doubles as a landlord: He’s a partner in a family firm that controls six Madison Ave. shops - and he gets rent from the likes of Georg Jensen, the Danish jeweler, and Anne Fontaine, the Parisian designer.
While his state salary paid him $151,150 last year, sky-high retail rents earned him $949,581.
Spitzer has lived rent-free with his family at 985 Fifth Ave. for 13 years. The 25-story tower off 79th St. has just two apartments per floor and terraces that look down at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The history: His father bought two townhouses on the site in 1967, razed them and put up the luxury building in 1968. It has been a dependable moneymaker ever since - generating $5.5 million in rent last year alone.
Thanks to his dad’s generosity, Spitzer, his wife and three daughters have lived in a home graced with at least three bedrooms, four baths, a balcony, library and sweeping vistas of Central Park.
In a phone interview, Bernard Spitzer confirmed certain facts about his property holdings, but declined to discuss his gifts: “I would ask, respectfully, that any information about Eliot’s finances be provided by Eliot’s office.”
Referring to his son the attorney general and two other children - Daniel, a neurosurgeon, and Emily, a lawyer - he said, “These are not children who sit around availing themselves of the benefits of a comfortable upbringing and lifestyle.
“They all work, and they work very hard. ...And it gives me great pleasure to see them fulfilling themselves and their responsibilities.”
Vetted by lawyers and accountants, the living arrangement is both lawful and proper, said Darren Dopp, Spitzer’s communications director: The father pays an annual gift tax on the present he gives his son.
“These and other financial matters are handled by professionals who ensure that everything is done in strict accordance with city, state and federal law,” Dopp said.
The market value of the gift is reported annually on real estate tax filings and on Bernard Spitzer’s tax returns. But citing privacy, Dopp declined to disclose the apartment’s rent, the gift’s value or the amount of the gift tax paid.
Three real estate brokers familiar with the building say that a spread of comparable size could lease for $16,000 to $20,000 a month. That puts the gift’s current value at an estimated $192,000 to $240,000 a year.
“Landlords on Fifth Ave. can ask for almost anything they want, and chances are, they’ll get it,” said Onik Ovanes, a broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman.
The home at 985 Fifth Ave. is one cornerstone of the family fortune. Others are spelled out in a 2003 letter in which Eliot Spitzer recused himself from dealings his office may have with firms that could pose a potential conflict of interest.
Under the Freedom of Information law, The News sought the document June 8 and received a version June 15 with the names of 18 family real estate companies blacked out.
The newspaper’s appeal, on July 14, was denied on Sept. 1 by Spitzer’s lawyers, who cited security and privacy concerns. After requesting an opinion from the state’s Committee on Open Government, The News was given the names on Oct. 12 by Spitzer’s counsel. The 18 firms represent the elder Spitzer’s interest in 10 Manhattan residential and commercial buildings, two East Side parking garages and a Washington office building on K St.
Among his properties:
The Retail Strip. The family holds a master lease on six Madison Ave. storefronts below 62nd St. - on a block where first-floor rents can top $1,000 a square foot. Since 1999, the attorney general’s share of the partnership generated $5.1 million in rental income from such retail tenants as Ghurka, the luxury leather goods shop.
The Curving Tower. Bernard Spitzer built 200 Central Park South, famous for its dramatically curved corner, in 1963 and transferred partial ownership to his three children. In 1984, the 35-story building went co-op, and Eliot Spitzer’s stake became eight apartments, which he rented out. After running up millions in bank debt in his winning campaign in 1998, he sold them back to his father for $6.1 million in 1999 to pay off the loans.
The Gargantuan Tower. Bernard Spitzer built the Corinthian at 330 E. 38th St. in 1988. The 57-story Murray Hill condo, with 865 units, is one of the single largest apartment buildings in America. His son lived on the 49th floor from 1989 to 1993.
The Tower Above the School. Bernard Spitzer built the 28-story rental at 220 E. 72nd St. - with a home for Marymount Manhattan College on the lower six floors. His son lived on the 24th floor from 1984 to 1989. Bernard Spitzer also built 210 Central Park South, 1050 Fifth Ave. and 800 Fifth Ave., all on Central Park. In addition, he built 150 E. 57th St., a luxury rental, and a Washington building on K St. for lawyers and lobbyists.
He also holds a stake in the landmark Crown Building, at 730 Fifth Ave. on 57th St., which was once owned by notorious Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos.