A Real Pecora Commission

In 1932 through 1934 the Senate Banking Committee, led by its Chief Counsel Ferdinand Pecora, ferreted out the deeper fraud and corruption that led to the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. The Pecora Committee's findings helped change the political mood, and laid the groundwork for the sweeping financial reforms of Roosevelt's New Deal. Roosevelt himself often conferred with Pecora, encouraged him, and depended on Pecora's work to build the public support for reform. He appointed Pecora to one of the newly created results of his handiwork, the Securities and Exchange Commission, though Pecora was disappointed not to be its chairman.

President Obama has now signed legislation, The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009, which among other things creates an investigative commission inspired by Pecora.