Harold Ickes

Harold McEwen Ickes is a superdelegate in the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

2008 elections
"Hillary Clinton tries to wrest Michigan & Florida delegates from party panel", New York Daily News, May 29, 2008.

Ickes is "technically a volunteer for the campaign known as Hillary for President"&mdash;is "Adviser to the Campaign Manager" for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.)'s 2008 presidential campaign, The Politico reported April 18, 2007.

Ickes' firm&mdash;Ickes and Enright Group&mdash;is part of Washington D.C.-based lobbying firm Griffin Johnson Dover & Stewart. Ickes' "lobbying clients have included a nursing home association, the insurance company Equitas, the Service Employees International Union and a subsidiary of Verizon communications." 

"Perhaps Ickes' largest-scale project is Catalist, a private company born out of his open distrust in the ability of Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean to build a voter database to rival that of the Republicans. Ickes is president of the company. ...

"Catalist had 19 clients last electoral cycle, many of them union-backed political operations and advocacy groups, such as the Sierra Club and the AFL-CIO, Ickes said. ... Adding a bit of delicacy to his position, Catalist is in talks with the Clinton campaign as well as rival Democratic primary campaigns." 

Ickes is also a member of the Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Profile
A New York lawyer and lobbyist, Ickes served from 1994 until late in 1996 as Deputy Chief of Staff in the William Jefferson Clinton administration.

Ickes chaired Clinton's presidential campaign in New York in 1992. Before that, Ickes was a senior advisor to David Dinkins' successful mayoral election. He returned to private life in 1997. Ickes' father (Harold LeClaire Ickes (1874-1952)) served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior (1933-1946) during the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration.

Controversy
Ickes was linked to a series of scandals and investigations at the Clinton White House:

Travelgate
See Harold Ickes' Deposition made June 14, 1996, to the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, U.S. House of Representatives.

Labor Union/Teamsters Campaign Funding
Ickes is said to have "represented many labor unions over the years. Some of those unions -- the Laborers, Local 100 of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union in New York, Teamsters Local 239 in New York, and the District Council of Carpenters in New York -- have extensive ties to organized crime, according to federal prosecutors. In fact, Ickes's ties to corrupt unions were so extensive that the White House deemed it impossible to nominate him for a job that required Senate confirmation and placed him instead in the position of deputy chief of staff."

"In the financial disclosure statement that Ickes was required to file upon entering the White House, he says he left his law firm (Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein) in December 1993. Ickes listed two Laborers union organizations among the 199 clients he handled between 1989 and 1993. Those organizations were the Laborers and Employers Cooperation and Education Trust and the Laborers New York State Political Action Committee. Both were groups that engaged in lobbying and political activity for the union."

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * lobbying firms
 * soft money

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Portal:Superdelegate Transparency Project
 * Superdelegates in the 2008 presidential primaries
 * U.S. presidential election, 2008
 * U.S. presidential election, 2008/Congressional endorsements
 * Portal:2008 U.S. Congressional Elections