So Not a Surprise

Even Bayh is running for Senate again.

In February 2010, the day before the deadline for appearing on the primary ballot, he announced that he was not running for reelection, which was a complete surprise and made what would have been a difficult Senate campaign in a difficult year absolutely impossible for the Democrats.

Well, someone has looked his unexpected retirement, and has determined that he was furiously looking for rather significantly lucrative position before he announced, which raises some serious ethical questions.

This is not a surprise, given that his wife's sitting on a lot corporate boards when he was in the Senate:

Evan Bayh spent substantial time during his last year in the Senate searching for a private sector job even as he voted on issues of interest to his future corporate bosses, according to the former Indiana lawmaker's 2010 schedule, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press.

The Democrat had more than four dozen meetings and phone calls with headhunters and future corporate employers over the months, beginning days after announcing his surprise retirement from the Senate on Feb. 15, 2010, through December of that year as his term came to an end. Bayh is now running to get his old seat back and help his party regain Senate control.

Announcing his retirement, Bayh claimed he was fed up with the gridlock and that it was time for him to "contribute to society in another way." His announcement stunned party bosses; Democrats lost his Senate seat in the midterm elections later that year.

Two days after that announcement, on Feb. 17, Bayh was on the phone with a job headhunter, Jim Citrin of the Spencer Stuart firm.

What Bayh did may have been perfectly allowable under the Senate's self-policing rules.

………
"It's outrageous," said Craig Holman, a lobbyist with Public Citizen who helped Democrats write the ethics language intended to eliminate conflicts of interest. "What we were unaware of at the time was how Congress would manipulate the rule so that they really don't abide by it."

In June 2010, Bayh was among a small group of Democrats who helped kill a tax increase on private equity gains known as carried interest that was opposed by Apollo Global Management. That fall he stayed overnight three times at one Apollo executive's Central Park South residence in Manhattan, and met twice with the company's chief executive, Leon Black.

Weeks after Bayh left the Senate, Apollo announced he had been hired as a senior adviser.

In May 2010, Bayh lunched with a Marathon Oil board member. Then in June, he and a minority of Democrats joined with Republicans to defeat an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would have eliminated billions in tax deductions and exemptions for oil and gas companies.

Marathon Petroleum Corp., a new Marathon spinoff, announced Bayh had been elected to its board in July 2011.

………

The schedule shows many other meetings with top Wall Street and corporate officials throughout the months, even as the Senate debated and voted on major legislation including the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill and an extension of President George W. Bush's tax cuts. Bayh supported extending the Bush tax cuts and also voted for Dodd-Frank, while pushing to soften up some of the more onerous requirements on Wall Street.

………

Consider Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010.

The day begins with Bayh in Nantucket, staying at the Massachusetts waterfront mansion belonging to financier David Rubenstein, who once worked for Bayh's father, former Sen. Birch Bayh.

Evan Bayh then flies to New York, his Senate account picking up the tab, and heads to Aron's apartment to drop his bag.

Bayh meets with Rob Shafir, then the chairman of Credit Suisse, before taping an appearance with journalist Katie Couric on the topics "Reasons for your retirement from the Senate, the state of our politics (why are our politics so broken), fixing and reforming the institution of the Senate," according to his schedule.

Bayh goes on to meet with Deutsche Bank chief executive Seth Waugh before having dinner at a steakhouse with Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein. Bayh returns to Aron's apartment for the night.

This time around, the Democratic Party Establishment got the winner of the primary to drop out in June when Bayh decided to throw his hat into the ring.

Bad move, and they should have learned this when he f%$#ed them for a payday in 2010.