MSNBC "Interview with Senator Arlen Specter" - Transcript
Interview
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MS. MITCHELL: One plan to regain some of that $165 million in AIG bonus money is to tax every cent that was given out. Another would rework the company's next $30 billion bailout payment, but critics say that that plan would simply be using taxpayer money to repay taxpayers.
Joining us now from Capitol Hill, Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Senator, thank you so much for joining us.
What say you when it comes to these bonuses? Should they be taxed back? Should the AIG executives who approved the bonuses have to commit hari-kari? With whom do you side?
SEN. SPECTER: Andrea, they're not enforceable under the law. They are against public policy. It is obviously against public policy to pay bonuses to people who caused the problem. If you have, for example, a contract for the sale of heroin, that's not enforceable. You take those cases to court, they won't be enforced. It's just that plain. It's set out very simply in the restatement of the law on contracts, but Andrea, there's another aspect here that has to be recognized and that is the blame of Congress in rushing to judgment on these big bailout legislative proposals without proper consideration and I complained about it at the time.
We started off with four pages; it grew to 441 pages. We did not have hearings. We did not have markup. We did not have amendments on the floor so that Congress ought to learn from this and it ought not to repeat the mistake.
MS. MITCHELL: Well, you know, there's been a lot ventilating on all sides, but you're a former district attorney, a former prosecutor, experienced lawyer and we tend to trust your judgment on this, former Judiciary Chairman. So let me hear you out on when you say they're not enforceable, the top economic adviser and the Treasury Secretary said that these were contracts that if the government broke the contracts, there would be greater expense in going to court and suing to get the money back.
What would the next steps be in a practical way to get the money back and break the contracts?
SEN. SPECTER: The top economic adviser and the Secretary of the Treasury are wrong again. It happens too often to be excusable. I'd like to argue this as a legal matter. If you have a contract, which is against public policy, it is not enforceable. I gave you an extreme example. If you have a contract for the delivery of heroin, the use of heroin, the delivery of heroin is against the law, you can't enforce it.
Let those individuals who claim that they're entitled to bonuses go to court and the government will defend the case and will say these are against public policy. How can you pay a bonus to this individual in this company, which raised the problem and caused this $180 billion bailout and now they want bonuses on top?
It is simply unenforceable. Now, look, I've been a lawyer for a long time and I'm making a public statement and a pretty bold statement, but you bring me a lawyer who will take the opposite position and we might attract some viewers, Andrea.
MS. MITCHELL: I think we might. Well, let's go a little farther here. The Senate Democrats have now written -- draft a letter that they are going to send to Mr. Liddy, Edward Liddy, the AIG CEO who was not in charge of the company when these bonuses were granted, but is now and is defending them, demanding that we insist that you renegotiate these contracts in order to recoup these payments and make the American taxpayer whole, goes the letter.
So what should be the next step from the Senate, from the Congress, from the administration?
SEN. SPECTER: Renegotiation is unnecessary. Let the people who claim the bonuses go to court to enforce them. Listen, you can't renegotiate a contract unless the parties are willing to renegotiate. If these people think they're entitled to money, why would they voluntarily give it up? If you put them to the burden of going to court and you assert the defense that they're against public policy, the judge will have to agree with my assertion that they're against public policy, but I think that's a pretty clear cut case.
But what ought to be done next is to stop all the talk and tell them, go to court, they're unenforceable.
MS. MITCHELL: Let me ask you a more local, political question regarding Pennsylvania. You are going to face a primary challenge or may face another tough primary challenge.
Have you made a decision yet as to whether you will be consistent, I think, with your position two years ago and support card check, which has so divided labor versus business and which is such a tough issue in Pennsylvania?
SEN. SPECTER: Andrea, I did not support card check before. What I did was to vote for cloture because I think labor law needs reform, and I went to great lengths in a long floor statement and even wrote a law review article on it, which I don't do often, to say that I thought we ought to take up the question. The National Labor Relations Board is dysfunctional. When it's controlled by Democrats, they're all for labor; controlled by Republicans, all for business. Some cases take 11 years.
If the National Labor Relations Board -- it only has two members now, can't even have a meeting, can't even have a quorum. If the National Labor Relations Board had been functional, this big head of steam was not built up.
This is the most hotly controversial and contested issue that I've seen in a long time in this line of work and I'm hearing everybody out --
MS. MITCHELL: You haven't decided yet which way to go on it? Your vote could be the crucial vote in the Senate.
SEN. SPECTER: Andrea, it may be that 59 Democrats will be lining up in lockstep against it, in favor of card check and 40 Republicans lined up in lockstep against card check, that happened the last time and I'll be the deciding vote. It's getting a little monotonous. I just faced that on the stimulus package and I still got the wounds to show for it. They're threatening to -- the guy who ran against me in a one percent primary last time was going to run for governor, the stimulus vote, he's going to run for the Senate, the state committee has a censure motion. They may not support me. But that's the pay grade, Andrea, and I'll vote my conscience.
MS. MITCHELL: And from having covered you since, I think, 1967, as a child reporter, my money is on you right now when it comes to figuring out --
SEN. SPECTER: Andrea, I was just talking to the crew here about -- you and I have the longest running show in this line of work.
MS. MITCHELL: I know, let's keep it going. Great to see you, Senator.
SEN. SPECTER: Nice seeing you, Andrea. Appreciate the conversation.
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