Arnold Hiatt

Arnold Hiatt is an American businessman who was the president of the Stride Rite footwear company. He was a large contributor to political campaigns for the Democratic Party Hiatt was praised by Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig for his stance on electoral reform.

Stride Rite Hiatt was the son of a Lithuanian immigrant. He joined Stride Rite in 1967 when it acquired a children's shoe company named Blue Star, when sales were $35 million a year. In 1968, Hiatt became president; by 1992, Stride Rite was earning more than $600 million.

Advocacy of electoral reform According to Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, in 1996 Hiatt advocated to then-president Bill Clinton that the president work hard to try to end "private funding of public elections", but Hiatt was repudiated by Clinton. In 2007, Hiatt wrote:

Hiatt has urged passage of the Senate Fair Elections Now Act introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter, which is a bipartisan proposal to raise a "large number of small donations to show their credibility with the public" before qualifying for public funding for their campaigns.