OC Weekly: Same Cox, New Box!

[question everything]

August 5 - 11, 2005

Same Cox, New Box!

Once savagely anti-investor, the new-and-improved OC Republican says he’s ready to run the SEC for the people

by R. SCOTT MOXLEY

Mainstream reporters said Rep. Christopher Cox “sailed” through his Senate confirmation hearings to become chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Aug. 3. They talked about Cox’s smile, family, non-partisanship and commitment to aggressive policing of the nation’s financial markets. While the Ayn Rand admirer’s family is certainly charming, the rest of it was as fake as his front teeth, allegedly knocked out during a teenage hockey game.

After Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) introduced him at the July 26 hearing, Cox promised that “the focus” of the SEC under his direction will be “vigorous enforcement” of regulations. “The Commission must be vigilant in behalf of investors and stalwart against fraud and unfair dealings,” he said. “I unqualifiedly welcome the opportunity to continue to work with each of you for the protection of investors.”

Working to protect investors, of course, would be altogether new for the Newport Beach Republican. Before entering politics, he served as legal counsel to William E. Cooper, an Orange County swindler who stole $136 million, mostly from the elderly. In the nine terms he has served in Congress, Cox has repeatedly championed the narrow interests of corporations over their investors; his critics reasonably charge that he helped shape the regulatory environment in which Enron scandals ultimately flourished: in just one case, he politicked against a law that would have required accounting firms to disclose their financial interests in the corporations they audit. In 1994, he angrily predicted on the floor of the House that the Clinton presidency would produce a Great Depression; few men can claim to have predicted with more precision the opposite of what came to pass. In 1996, he backed an energy deregulation plan that cost Californians tens of billions of dollars—and then worked with Republican activists to pin the blame on Gray Davis, the state’s Democratic governor.

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http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/48/news-moxley.php

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