Ken Starr is the ultimate beltway insider. The former White House independent counsel is one of the most powerful attorneys in Washington, D.C., and as a former judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, he knows a thing or two about what it takes to successfully challenge federal regulators.
The Starr factor is why the legal community is paying attention to a lawsuit that would otherwise seem like a shot in the dark–a suit aimed at taking down SOX. Along with powerhouse attorneys Michael Carvin (President Bush’s counsel in the Florida ballot controversy) and Viet Dinh (a key figure in the development of the Patriot Act), Starr filed the suit Feb. 10 on behalf of a Nevada-based accounting firm and small-government advocates The Free Enterprise Fund. Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)–the agency charged with enforcing SOX–violates the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and the constitutional separation of powers. Moreover, because SOX doesn’t have a severability clause, the plaintiffs say that a win on the PCAOB issue means the court will have to invalidate the whole law.
