“Back in the day,” Enron’s collapse triggered the first major 401(k) fiasco in American history. Enron executives had encouraged employees to direct their 401(k) investments into the company’s stock, and they generally had matched employees’ contributions with Enron shares. When Enron went belly-up, therefore, the employees’ 401(k)s went bust. In the wake of the Enron debacle, Congressional Democrats took the initiative to assure 401(k) investors would diversify their portfolios, and they imposed sanctions on major corporations which “too strongly encouraged” (translation: required) employees to invest their 401(k) contributions in the company’s shares.

Because individual retirement accounts came out of Republican initiatives, 401(k) and the Democratic Party never have been exactly intimate. But, because Democrats always have allied with and stood up for labor, 401(k) and the Democratic Party frequently have duked-it-out with big corporations.

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