A Giant Passes: In Memory of Howard Metzenbaum

3/14/2008

Senator Howard M. Metzenbaum, former Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, has died at the age of 90. Senator Metzenbaum had retired from the Senate and was Chairman of the Consumer Federation of America in 1998 when I invited him to become one of the first members of the AAI Advisory Board. We had met years earlier when he was a member of what is now known as the Shenefield Commission, the blue ribbon commission that studied the antitrust laws in  the late 1970’s. (I was unofficially representing the FTC on the Commission. Other Commissioners who are now on the AAI Advisory Board are John Shenefield, Eleanor Fox, Alfred Kahn, and Max Blecher. The late Larry Sullivan was also a member.) As a member of the AAI Advisory Board, Senator Metzenbaum was always available to provide strategic advice and from time to time to help the AAI and the CFA work together on particular antitrust issues. His role as a crusty liberal reformer and steadfast friend of the consumer has long been missed in the Senate. Antitrust advocates will remember him as one of the giants of the antitrust world.

Bert Foer, President