Christopher C. Cox

Christopher Cox, Republican Representative from California, was nominated June 3, 2005, by President George W. Bush as Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cox would replace William H. Donaldson, who resigned June 1, 2005. 

Director of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Biographical Data
According to Representative Christopher Cox's Congressional biography, he is the "highest-ranking Californian in the Majority Leadership in Congress. As Chairman of the House Policy Committee, elected by the full majority Conference in the House for five consecutive terms, he is the fourth-ranking member of the leadership behind the Speaker.

"On January 7, 2003, J. Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, appointed Chairman Cox to head the new Homeland Security Committee in the House."

Cox is also a member of: House Leadership Steering Committee (makes Committee assignments in the House); Committee on Energy and Commerce; Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications; and Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality.

"Christopher Cox, who was then a White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, ... 1986-1988,... served as Senior Associate Counsel to President Reagan, advising the President on a broad range of policy matters - including writing President Reagan's Budget Process Reform Act (which Rep. Cox later introduced in Congress, and which received its first-ever floor vote in 2000). He also served as an advisor to the President on judicial selections, including the nomination and confirmation of three Supreme Court Justices.

"Prior to his White House career, Rep. Cox, along with his father, a retired publisher, founded a company that provided a complete English translation of the former Soviet Union's leading daily paper, Pravda. For four years, beginning in 1984, their firm, which had no relationship with the Soviet Union, offered a rare glimpse of Soviet propaganda designed for the Russians themselves. The translations were used by the CIA, the FBI, U.S. military intelligence, and colleges and universities in 26 countries throughout the world.

"From 1978 to 1986, he specialized in venture capital and corporate finance with the international law firm of Latham & Watkins, where he was the partner in charge of the Corporate Department in Orange County and a member of the firm's national management.

"In 1982-83, Rep. Cox took a leave of absence from Latham & Watkins to teach federal income tax at Harvard Business School.

"In 1977-78, he was law clerk to U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Herbert Choy, the first Asian-American federal appellate judge in America. The preceding year, he graduated simultaneously from Harvard Business School and the Harvard Law School, with honors, where for two years he served as an Editor of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California in 1973, after completing a three-year accelerated course."

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * Bush administration
 * Department of Homeland Security