Poorly Funded Thinkers Tank Revolving Door Pick for SEC Gig

Newsletter 81: 6 day stint of Paul Weiss’ Alex Oh at the SEC is revelatory about BigLaw, RDP, and what needs to change in politics

May 05, 2021

We at RDP are not unused to criticism. We’ve been accused of pushing “endless purity tests” and demonizing business leaders. Anonymous opponents have painted our founder, Jeff Hauser, as being in the pocket of “big immigration.” This comes with the territory; when you threaten wealthy elites’ grasp on power to which they feel entitled, you’re going to get some blowback.

But last week, we were the subject of one piece of slander that we simply could not stomach. In an op-ed for the New York Post, Fox News contributor Charlie Gasparino described RDP and its parent think tank, CEPR, as “well-funded.”

This is laughable.

RDP supports a staff of twelve, plus three paid interns, on a budget that is a fraction of what many at BigLaw, lobbying, Wall Street, and tech firms make in a year. That remains true even if you add the entirety of CEPR’s staff of 22. When we were in the office, many members of the team worked to the sound of water dripping into a bucket from the ceiling. We communed with the mice in our (and this is being very generous) break room. We prayed to make it through a ride in the elevator alive or, if we weren’t feeling adventurous that day, took the stairs.

In other words, being a member of the RDP team does not come with a whole lot of glamour or amenities. But that’s not why we are in this line of work. If a big salary and glitzy perks were the goals, we likely would have responded to one of the countless ads to work in Google’s policy division that come across our LinkedIn feeds.

But while Gasparino may have been wrong about our budget, we can’t help but agree with his assessment that our scrappy team of dedicated researchers is “influential.” In this case, Gasparino was referring to the fact that SEC Enforcement Director Alex Oh, who we vigorously opposed, stepped down a mere six days after having taken the role after “a federal judge reprimanded her and others defending oil giant ExxonMobil in a class action lawsuit brought by Indonesian villagers.” Her resignation letter noted that, she did not feel she could “address this development without it becoming an unwelcome distraction to the important work of the division.”

It was not so long ago that this sort of conduct would have been viewed as business-as-usual, if not roundly defended. Now, since we and our allies are here to shine a light on the egregious behavior that has become normalized within BigLaw, it is grounds for an abrupt resignation.

Over the last week, RDP’s influence has been evident elsewhere too. On Monday, the Treasury Department announced that Secretary Yellen was replacing acting Comptroller Blake Paulson with Federal Reserve official Michael Hsu. Back in February, we were among the first to note the peculiar circumstances surrounding Paulson’s elevation and the steps he was already taking to keep a Trumpian-OCC agenda moving along. We called for his removal at the time and only grew more insistent as his actions became more egregious in the ensuing months. It’s good that the Biden administration has finally taken this necessary step. Of course, a permanent pick to lead OCC is still needed and long overdue.

Paulson wasn’t the only Trump administration remnant who was replaced Monday. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced that former Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray, would replace Robin Minor as the Chief Operating Officer of Federal Student Aid. (While it was Cardona that picked Minor to serve as acting, she was in a senior enough position to be tapped thanks to a DeVos-led organizational shakeup that consolidated power in the hands of perceived loyalists). Under Cordray’s leadership, the CFPB was an important ally for student loan borrowers, giving us every reason to believe this will be a notable improvement.

But, needless to say, there is still so much work to be done. That Alex Oh was picked for the powerful enforcement role to begin with should make that clear. Myths about the revolving door’s value persist, despite evidence of its consistent failures. Recent examples should tell us that BigLaw partners, like Mary Jo White and Robert Khuzami, have little interest in leading agencies to the new heyday of corporate enforcement this country so desperately needs. And a brief look at these figures’ actual records should dispel any claim that they are uniquely talented lawyers. BigLaw partners make their name defending corporations in a system that is designed top-to-bottom for their benefit. They face regulatory systems to which they have unique access, they can rely on insider information from their firm’s suite of revolvers, and they argue in front of courts that have consistently been stocked with other BigLaw attorneys and, recently, hardcore right wing ideologues eager to grow corporate power by whatever means. It seems to us that those who spend their time working against the odds with a fraction of the money -- as plaintiffs’ attorneys, public interest advocates, and more -- are much more likely to be the creative, talented thinkers we need. But that clearly has yet to become the mainstream view.

With our BigLaw Revolving Door series, produced in collaboration with the People’s Parity Project, we are working hard to pull back the curtain on the shadowy world of BigLaw and create a broader appreciation for the harm it causes. Obviously, we still have a long way to go.

If you want to help us get there or support us in our many other ongoing and upcoming fights, you can chip in here. And you can sleep easy knowing that your money will not go to a fancy office but to a team of passionate people who are eager to make the most of it.

Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:

The Rules Dems Could Change To Keep The Tom Cottons Of The Senate From Delaying Biden Noms' Confirmations

Trump Holdovers Are Dragging Down the Biden Agenda

⏩ Rebuilding After Trump: Watch This Revolving Door Project Roundtable

Brad Karp Harasses Journalists. Why Are Journalists Quoting Him Uncritically?

Second Report in BigLaw Revolving Door Series Examines Right-Wing And Corporate Ties At Jones Day

Revolver Spotlight: Alex Oh

SEC's New Enforcement Director, Alex Oh, Is Bad News For Climate

Can President Biden Deliver Effective Climate Leadership?

The S.E.C.’s director of enforcement stepped down just days after taking the job.

SEC enforcement chief resigns over role in Indonesian torture case

New SEC Enforcement Director Alex Oh Resigns, Agency Says