State Sen. Joe Kyrillos (R-13) savaged incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) for being hypocritically hamstrung by his connections to the securities industry.
The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that Federated Investors, Inc. in May hired a former chief of staff to Menendez and paid him $30,000 in the second quarter. Federated strongly opposes proposed money market reform, according to published reports.
Michael Hutton was Menendez’s chief of staff from 1992-2002.
The Journal wrote that as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, Menendez “backed the SEC appointment of Luis Aguilar, a Democrat seen as a swing vote on the five-member commission.” A former general counsel for Invesco Inc., the 13th largest money-fund company by assets, Aguilar is on record saying “he doesn’t believe there is sufficient evidence that additional reforms are needed.”
On the heels of that report, the Kyrillos campaign charged that Wall Street interests have given over $22,000 in campaign cash to Menendez “to defeat Wall Street accountability.”
“Once again Senator Bob Menendez is putting politics ahead of people ” said Kyrillos Campaign Manager Chapin Fay. “It’s outrageous that Senator Menendez would block the very reform he’s claimed to support and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that after taking over $8 million in Wall Street and special interest money, Bob Menendez ain’t fighting for the middle class.”
Politifact earlier this summer reported that Kyrillos himself has collected nearly $60,000 for his current campaign from the securities and investment industry.
According to Politifact’s research, Menendez received nearly $1.4 million from the industry between 1989 and 2012.
The Menendez Campaign responded late in the day.
“Mr. Kyrillos’ attempt to paint Senator Menendez as a pawn of Wall Street was already struck down in June by an objective third party,” said spokesman Paul Brubaker. “That same month, Senator Menendez stood up for middle class interests during a Senate hearing as he questioned JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s about the tremendous losses the bank incurred. Senator Menendez has a long record of fighting for consumer protections as they pertain to credit card interest rates and predatory lending. He also supports a better-regulated financial sector to avoid making the mistakes that led the nation to the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Today’s charge from Mr. Kyrillos is ironic, to say the least, given that he opposes Wall Street regulations that would protect the middle class and is content to allow unbridled financial institutions gamble with our future.
“Mr. Kyrillos is stitching together different time frames. Senator Menendez has supported Luis Aguilar since he was first nominated in 2007. Since then, Commissioner Aguilar has proven to be one of the SEC’s strongest voices for American consumers and strongest advocates for greater transparency on Wall Street transparency. On the point of the pending SEC money market fund regulations, Senator Menendez simply believes that before proceeding with a new round of regulations, we should see what has been accomplished by the current regulations.
“Among the reforms being proposed pertains to a requirement of money market funds to retain a certain amount of cash to make sure they remain solvent. Where does Mr. Kyrillos stand on this and the other proposed reforms?”
