THE INFLUENCE GAME: Big Biz has a friend in Locke

[Political Heretic]

THE INFLUENCE GAME: Big Biz has a friend in Locke
By SHARON THEIMER
Associated Press Writer

Gary Locke is new to the Commerce Department but already known to corporate America, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help re-elect him as Washington's governor. His donors included Microsoft and Boeing, two home-state companies that Locke tried hard to please and whose issues he will almost certainly encounter as a Cabinet secretary.

Fortune 500 companies and other businesses gave at least $800,000 to the Democrat's campaigns for governor, including at least $500,000 for his easy 2000 re-election, according to an Associated Press review of his campaign finance reports. The rest was split between his 1996 race and his 2004 campaign. He ultimately abandoned his third bid and refunded those donations.

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Locke's Microsoft stock is a concern, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group.

"I think it is a problem when a Cabinet official is in a position to make decisions impacting a company and they hold a significant amount of stock in that company because then they're making decisions that impact their own financial interests," Sloan said. "I think it is reasonable that Mr. Locke should have to do something with that stock, whether or not he divests it or he puts all of his holdings in some kind of blind trust and lets someone else make the decisions. Or he has the option of recusing himself from any decision affecting Microsoft."

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