Deborah Platt Majoras on Political Friendster
posted by Frank Pasquale
Both EPIC and CDD have petitioned for a recusal of FTC Chair Deborah Platt Majoras in the pending Google/Doubleclick merger review. According to Louise Story at the NYT Bits Blog, “Ms. Majoras’s husband, John M. Majoras, works at Jones Day, a law firm representing DoubleClick as the merger is considered. Ms. Majoras also worked at Jones Day.” The motion lays out the recusal standards in some detail, and notes specific instances where Platt Majoras recused herself before:
Chairman Majoras recused herself in the FTC’s review of the Proctor & Gamble acquisition of Gillette “because her former law firm, Jones Day, represented P&G before the Commission, and Majoras’ husband remains an active partner with the firm.”
Whenever I teach the Cheney/Scalia duck hunt case, I am reminded of how much networks of influence in DC can overlap. The Matalin/Carville romance reminds us that compartmentalization is an option. One might imagine the Majorases as actors in a regulatory “Adam’s Rib,” where two married lawyers “use every technique they know to win the case, [as] the courtroom tension carries over into the couple’s household.”
But this page on Political Friendster suggests the tensions may not run too high. It points out some industry connections made a bit more clear at this source.
December 12, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Posted in: Administrative Law
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Responses (1)
geoff - December 13, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Ah, muckraking. A time-worn tradition. So, let me see if I get this straight. Majoras is incapable of acting scrupulously in assessing gouging claims because she has, in the past, advised oil companies (among hundreds of other companies). Nevermind the airtight arguments against price gouging by oil companies and the broad and vast company saying the same things as Majoras. And this tenuous, utterly-unsupported (and oh-so-carefully implicit) claim of bias thus supports calls for Majoras to recuse herself from involvement in a wholly-unrelated case, in a different industry entirely, because, something like, “she’s done it before; she’ll do it again!” I see. Yes, very compelling.
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