Like many other business executives, Ira Lipman dislikes the current system of campaign finance. The owner of one of the nation's largest security firms, Lipman gave all but $4,000 of his $335,000 in contributions during the last election cycle to Democrats. But he also endorsed recommendations from a business and university think tank called the Committee for Economic Development designed to "guide" officials on revamping campaign finance. Lipman and other trustees of the committee want to ban soft money to political parties, but increase the amounts individuals can give to $3,000 for candidates and $25,000 for parties. That way, the committee notes, candidates can "raise the necessary funds to communicate their positions to the public without spending excessive time fundraising."
Lipman was a political mover at a young age. When he was 16, a federal judge ordered an all-white high school near his home to admit black students. Officials would not allow NBC reporter John Chancellor into the school to cover the story, so Lipman sought Chancellor out and served as his "reliable source" from inside the building.
"I'm unabashedly proud of this country," Lipman once told The American Enterprise. "I constantly tell everyone how great a country it is, and how it provides opportunity to all."
It has certainly provided opportunity for Lipman. In 1963, while working as a salesman at his father's detective agency in Little Rock, Arkansas, he noticed that clients were asking for security guards. Lipman borrowed $1,000 from his father and started Guardsmark, which now boasts offices in more than 400 cities in the United States and Canada.
As honorary chair of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Lipman sits on the board that voted unanimously in favor of a national moratorium on the death penalty, citing inequities in the administration of capital punishment. He is a noted expert on criminology and author of How to Protect Yourself from Crime.
-- Pam Smith
