Former Maryland Democratic  Senator Paul Sarbanes, who, along with former Ohio Republican Representative Michael Oxley, wrote the famous legislation bearing their names, has died at the age of 87, reported Accounting Today. By co-authoring the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in response to the Enron and Worldcom scandals, the senator introduced a massive paradigm shift in the accounting profession through the introduction of new independence controls and internal audit requirements and the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

Many years prior to that, in 1974, Sarbanes, at the time in the House, was the member of Congress who was given the assignment of introducing and defending, on national television, the critical first article of impeachment charging then-president Richard Nixon with obstruction of justice, according to the New York Times. The Times said that he generally shunned the spotlight, and while his voting record was decidedly liberal, he was not known as a partisan brawler, much to the grumblings of certain congressional colleagues.