Cronyism Alert: JEB! Bush And John Kasich’s Work At Lehman Spotlights Different Revolving Door Between Business and Government

(International Business Times) - Republican presidential rivals Jeb Bush and John Kasich bring to their campaigns their experience as governors of major battleground states, but they also share a resume line from their time in the private sector. The Florida and Ohio pols both worked at the ill-fated Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers just as the firm was racking up vast losses for their states' respective pension systems.

While Kasich has denounced Wall Street greed and Bush has criticized lawmakers who become lobbyists, during their time at Lehman they leveraged their public sector experience -- Bush as a former governor and Kasich as a former nine-term congressman -- to help the bank build relationships and navigate public policy matters.

Those roles spotlight a lesser-known revolving door between corporations and government.

Rather than becoming traditional lobbyists, “these kind of people serve as door openers,” said Jeff Hooke, an investment banker who worked at Lehman Brothers in the 1990s. “Sometimes it’s hard for a normal investment banker -- even a senior guy -- to get a CEO or a finance minister to return his calls to present them with a new idea, so a guy like Jeb Bush, whose name is instantly recognizable or has lots of contact from his fundraising days or governorship or his family -- he’s going to get his calls returned.”

Bush and Kasich received big Lehman paychecks as the bank’s mortgage-backed securities decimated the investments intended to support their states’ retired workers, and today, both are getting financial support for their presidential campaigns from donors they worked with during their time at Lehman.

Neither Bush nor Kasich was registered to lobby for Lehman on regulatory matters. A spokesman for the Kasich campaign, Scott Milburn, told International Business Times that Kasich “was in the investment banking division” and “worked as part of coverage teams across a variety of sectors” doing mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and other financial deals. Read more.