Jeb Bush And John Kasich’s Work At Lehman Spotlights Different Revolving Door Between Business

IBT ^ | 8/21/15 | David Sirota, Matthew Cunningham-Cook, Andrew Perez

[jimbo123]

Jeb Bush And John Kasich’s Work At Lehman Spotlights Different Revolving Door Between Business and Government.

Republican presidential rivals Jeb Bush and John Kasich bring to their campaigns their experience as governors of major battleground states, but they also share a resume line from their time in the private sector. The Florida and Ohio pols both worked at the ill-fated Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers just as the firm was racking up vast losses for their states' respective pension systems.

While Kasich has denounced Wall Street greed and Bush has criticized lawmakers who become lobbyists, during their time at Lehman they leveraged their public sector experience -- Bush as a former governor and Kasich as a former nine-term congressman -- to help the bank build relationships and navigate public policy matters.

Those roles spotlight a lesser-known revolving door between corporations and government.

Rather than becoming traditional lobbyists, “these kind of people serve as door openers,” said Jeff Hooke, an investment banker who worked at Lehman Brothers in the 1990s. “Sometimes it’s hard for a normal investment banker -- even a senior guy -- to get a CEO or a finance minister to return his calls to present them with a new idea, so a guy like Jeb Bush, whose name is instantly recognizable or has lots of contact from his fundraising days or governorship or his family -- he’s going to get his calls returned.”

Bush and Kasich received big Lehman paychecks as the bank’s mortgage-backed securities decimated the investments intended to support their states’ retired workers, and today, both are getting financial support for their presidential campaigns from donors they worked with during their time at Lehman.

Neither Bush nor Kasich was registered to lobby for Lehman on regulatory matters.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I’ll take who is the DNC and Goldman Sachs for 100 Alex.

[grania]

So Lehman Brothers takes relatively young pols who are leaving their current gig, hires them, enriches them, programs them, then finances their run for higher office? Has either Jeb or Kasich filed their financial disclosures yet?

[hoosiermama]

Bit concerned for Hiedi Cruz and her recent job too

[ballearthout]

Good question. So far, the media has only reported that Bush and Kasich “are not Trump” so to speak.

[jpsb]

Yes it is called crony capitalism and Cruz is in on it too. His TPA vote proved he’s a Wall St politician not a Main St politician.

[FR_addict]

Eye opening!

[FR_addict]

“Yes it is called crony capitalism and Cruz is in on it too. His TPA vote proved he’s a Wall St politician not a Main St politician.”

Yep! But it’s the Corker Bill, I can’t let go.

[jpsb]

Corker passed 99 to 1, I give Cruz a pass on that. Lee, Sessions and Paul (good reliable conservatives) all voted for it too. And IIRC Cruz voted against cloture (the real vote) on Corker.

[9YearLurker]

Good and important article—more should be made of this.

[jimbo123]

These IBT writers (although left-wing of course), have done a good job with this and 2 other articles doing research and reading through the documents they got from FOI requests. They’re not just reprinting talking points from their lefist overlords which is refreshing, even though they are not on our side.

Jeb Bush Leveraged Political Connections For Clients And Allies After Leaving Florida Governorship

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3326738/posts

Jeb Bush Got $1.3M Job At Lehman After Florida Shifted Pension Cash To Bank

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3326482/posts