We’re conducting a whip count on the SAFE Banking Act amendment to the financial reform bill right now, which would force a handful of the biggest banks to shrink themselves down over a period of three years to about the size they were in 2003. Obviously, the big banks are dead set against this amendment. Their lobbyists are currently working the Hill to fight it.
As the day wound down on Wednesday afternoon and Senate offices began to close, the whip count paused for the day with 11 senators in the supportive column and 11 senators in the opposing column. So I began thinking, how does support for breaking up the banks a la the SAFE Banking Act correspond with campaign contributions from the finance industry Pulling from lifetime campaign contribution data provided by OpenSecrets.org, I discovered that senators opposing the big-bank opposed SAFE Banking Act have received nearly twice as much money from the financial sector.
- Total lifetime financial industry contributions to the 11 supporters: $13,174,331
Mean average lifetime contribution of the supporters: $1,197,666Total lifetime financial industry contributions to the 11 opponents: $24,996,352
Mean average lifetime contribution of the opponents: $2,272,395
If that’s not clear, I don’t know what is. There’s no ambiguity here — Senators opposing the SAFE Banking Act are doing the bidding of the big banks that are funding their political campaigns.
UPDATE: In response to a request in the comments, here are the individual totals from OpenSecrets:
Supporters:
- Kaufman $0
Sherrod Brown $1,620,430
Casey $1,355,841
Harkin $2,534,445
Merkley $721,157
Sanders $181,095
Whitehouse $1,222,607
Durbin $3,055,424
Burris $4,900
Dorgan $1,455,834
Franken $1,022,598
Opponents:
- Conrad $2,507,437
Bill Nelson $3,213,078
Begich $412,637
Warner $2,632,766
Gregg $1,070,249
Grassley $2,605,399
Enzi $1,087,043
Sessions $2,158,535
Crapo $1,779,063
Ensign $2,589,370
Alexander $4,940,775
[...] UPDATE: Our data crunching shows that Senators who are currently opposed to breaking up the banks receive twice as much in campaign contributions from the finance sector than those who are for “SAFE [...]
Wouldn’t it be interesting to post the individual totals as well as the aggregates?
Good idea. I updated with the individual totals via OpenSecrets. Luckily, I still had my notes in my text editor.
You can add Senator Cochran (R-Mississippi) to the opponent column.
Yes, but which Nelson is which?
That’s Bill Nelson of FL.
But it shows Nelson (which?) as both a supporter and an opponent. My suspicion is one is Bill Nelson and the other Ben Nelson, but which opposes? I caN probably guEss who, but I could be wrong…
Ooops. The “Nelson” in the supporters column is actually supposed to be Durbin. I fixed it. I had the right $ info, but the wrong name. Bill Nelson is listed as an opponent. He opposed a test vote on breaking up the banks in the Budget Committee.
[...] Opposing Breaking up the Banks Get Way More Money from Financial Industry (A New Way Forward) Money speaks–nay, yells–against breaking up the [...]
If they oppose breaking up the big, TBTF, banks…then they also oppose supporting, or representing their constituents.
This is democracy?
It has become less of a real democracy as corporate power grew unfettered, there is now a third party — the corporate party representing the narrow interests of corporations.