“It is good to be in the same room as my namesake,” former Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., said at the National Press Club on Monday. “People in Maryland were wondering why I was running around with a hyphenated last name.”
He was referring to former Rep. Mike Oxley, R-Ohio. The two men, who co-wrote the landmark Sarbanes-Oxley accounting reform bill, were on hand to discuss the act’s fifth anniversary.
For Oxley, the legislation gave him a measure of prime-time fame, and not just on newscasts. As he told the crowd: “I got acall from my mother-in-law one day not too long ago, and she said, Mike, you’re on Jeopardy!” and I responded, “Mom, I’m in jeopardy?” and she said, “No, you’re on the TV show Jeopardy! and your law was the answer to the final question. The only problem is that there were two Americans and one Canadian, and the Canadian was the only one who got it right.”
