History is replete with famous rivalries. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. Each has its own story that rocked the world. The rivalry between California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer may not be as well known, but it certainly has rocked the non-profit world.
It seems Lockyer was in a race against the headline-grabbing Spitzer to pass a Sarbanes-Oxley-like law that would clean up the financial shenanigans in the non-profit sector. He succeeded. California’s Non-Profit Integrity Act became effective Jan. 1, 2005. Spitzer’s own effort is still on the legislative drawing board in Albany, N.Y., perhaps because he was busy putting corporate executives in jail and announcing his candidacy for governor.
