Word: reformer
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Preoccupied by the war in Iraq, Washington has assumed a wait-and-see attitude. Its outgoing ambassador to the U.N., John Danforth, says Washington wants to ensure that any reform would make the Council more, not less, efficient. An expanded Security Council wouldn't necessarily satisfy that requirement, since the addition of new members would mean that Council debates might drag on even longer. But right now the U.S. knows it has to keep its allies happy. "This is a huge party for many of the countries we deal with," notes a senior State Department official. "Even though...
...course, that's not saying much. Ideas for reforming the Security Council have been debated, and mostly rejected, since the day the organization was founded in 1945. Although membership was expanded in 1965 from 11 to 15, the Council still reflects the balance of power that prevailed after World War II. The club of permanent, veto-wielding Council members has not expanded beyond the original five: the U.S., Russia, France, Britain and China (although the People's Republic replaced Taiwan in the Chinese seat in 1971). In recent years, the Council has come under siege from upstarts...
...Retirement System, or CalPERS. For years, CalPERS used the leverage of its enormous investment portfolio to rail against companies that it believed were badly run or acting irresponsibly. When the Enron debacle ushered in an era of scandals, CalPERS's leadership made it an instant star of the corporate-reform movement...
Harrigan and his Democratic allies blame a G.O.P. cabal backed by business interests for trying to slow CalPERS's shareholder activism. "This is payback by the big corporate special interests who fight our reform efforts and their ally Governor Schwarzenegger," asserts Democrat Phil Angelides, the state treasurer and a CalPERS board member. The Governor, state Republicans and business groups all deny conspiring to oust Harrigan. But his demise shows just how much harder Schwarzenegger's rise has made it for even the state's most powerful Democrats to throw their weight around...
CalPERS is adjusting. Board member Steve Westly, the Democratic state controller, urged colleagues to give their strident reform policies "an extreme makeover." They agreed to focus on executive compensation instead of more controversial issues. But Angelides plans to continue the CalPERS fight. "We won't be silenced," he says. "There's too much at stake." By Sonja Steptoe/ Los Angeles