Ed Rendell

Ed Rendell is the former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania (2003-2011).

Ties to Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt"
The Campaign to Fix the Debt is the latest incarnation of a decades-long effort by former Nixon man turned Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson to slash earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare under the guise of fixing the nation's "debt problem."

Rendell is a co-chair of the Campaign to Fix the Debt in 2013. He has extensive corporate and financial ties.

This article is part of the Center for Media and Democracy's investigation of Pete Peterson's Campaign to "Fix the Debt." Please visit our main SourceWatch page on Fix the Debt.

Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest
Rendell lobbied for KCI USA, a wound care technology company, on Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements in 2012.

Rendell is also special counsel to the law firm Ballard Spahr, which has been criticized as a union-busting law firm. (For example, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) has used Ballard Spahr lawyers as its negotiators for labor contracts with the Transport Workers Union (TWU). ) In his work for the firm, Rendell focuses on public/private partnerships and housing, with an emphasis on infrastructure.

Rendell is a senior adviser at Greenhill & Co., a multinational investment bank. Ninety percent of Greenhill’s revenue reportedly comes from advisory assignments, including to public officials.

Rendell is also on the advisory board of Verdeva, a firm developing technology to track motorists at the gas pump so they can be taxed for infrastructure revenue, an industry-favored measure for developing the income streams they need to support infrastructure investment deals (see Rendell's support of privatization of public assets below).

Rendell has also joined the venture capital firm Element Partners as an operating partner. Element Partners recently invested in oil and gas extraction from the Marcellus shale formation.

Support of Privatization
Rendell is a strong proponent of “public private partnerships” in infrastructure, which have been criticized as a dubious form of privatization of public assets (ee his position on the board of Verdeva above).

2008 election
Rendell supported Senator Hillary Clinton's bid to become the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential candidate and has criticized media coverage of Clinton as unfair. On March 31, 2008, Rendell congratulated Fox News on their coverage, telling "Fox & Friends" host Steve Doocy: "I think during this entire primary coverage, starting in Iowa and up to the present, Fox has done the fairest job, has remained the most objective of all the cable networks. . . . You actually have done a very balanced job of reporting the news, and some of the other stations are just caught up with Senator Obama, who is a great guy, but [according to those stations] Senator Obama can do no wrong, and Senator Clinton can do no right."

Support of Israeli Armed Forces
On 12 November 2011, Ed Rendell gave the keynote speech at a Philadelphia gala/fundraiser to support the Israeli armed forces.

Background
Rendell is the former mayor and district attorney of the City of Philadelphia and the former chair of the National Governors Association.

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