John Norris, the democrat running in Iowa’s new Fourth Congressional District, is calling for a new “corporate accountability agenda.”Norris says his republican opponent, Congressman Tom Latham, has repeatedly voted against measures that would have cracked down on the kind of corporate malfeasance committed by WorldCom, which disguised nearly four billion dollars worth of expenses as profits.Norris says Latham has voted against tougher penalties for corporations like WorldCom that cook their books. Norris says C-E-Os and other top corporate officers should be held criminally and financially liable for those kind of shenanigans, and the Securities and Exchange Commission needs more money and power to police corporate America.Norris says the issue of corporate accountability will be a key issue in the campaign. Latham campaign spokesman Mike Day says it’s “insulting” for Norris to try to make “political points” out of the WorldCom situation, which will lead to 17-thousand layoffs, starting tomorrow. Day says there’s no lack of action on Latham’s part, as Latham voted this spring for the Pension Reform Act and for a bill that seeks to improve corporate accountability, both of which target the kind of abuses seen at Enron and WorldCom. The new Fourth District stretches from Decorah in the northeast down to Winterset in central Iowa.
