Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is a retired American politician, attorney, and college professor. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 54th Governor of New York from 2007 until 2008. Spitzer worked as an attorney in private practice with several New York law firms before becoming attorney general, where he worked for six years as a prosecutor with the office of the Manhattan district attorney. He was then elected to two four-year terms as the Attorney General of New York, serving from 1999 to 2006.

As Attorney General, Spitzer stepped up the profile of the office. Traditionally, state attorneys general have pursued consumer rights cases, concentrating on local fraud while deferring national issues to the federal government. Breaking with this traditional deference, Spitzer took up civil actions and criminal prosecutions relating to corporate white-collar crime, securities fraud, Internet fraud, and environmental protection. The New York Attorney General's office has Wall Street (and thus many leading corporate and financial institutions) within its jurisdiction. Also, the New York Attorney General wields greater than usual powers of investigation and prosecution of corporations under New York State's General Business Law. In particular, under the Martin Act of 1921, the New York Attorney General has the power to subpoena witnesses and company documents pertaining to investigations of fraud or illegal activity by a corporation. Spitzer used this statute to allow his office to prosecute cases which have been described as within federal jurisdiction. Spitzer used this authority in his civil actions against corporations and criminal prosecutions against their officers. It proved useful in the wake of several U.S. corporate scandals that began with the collapse of Enron in 2001. Several of these corporations, as well as the brokerage houses that sold their stock, were accused of having inflated stock values by unethical means throughout the 1990s. When inquiries into these allegations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Congress failed, Spitzer's office used its subpoena power to obtain corporate documents, building cases against the firms both in courtrooms and in public opinion.  Under his watch, Spitzer also commissioned a 1999 study of the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices.  In 2004, The Nation endorsed Spitzer as a possible Democratic candidate for vice president, stating that he was "the single most effective battler against corporate abuses in either political party". He was, however, not chosen.  In January 2005, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce described Spitzer's approach as "the most egregious and unacceptable form of intimidation we've seen in this country in modern times".

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