Crumbling Financial Giants Gave Generously To Dodd (D-Conn.)

[Newsjock]

Source: Hartford Courant

When a Democratic takeover of Congress put Christopher Dodd in charge of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, Connecticut's senior senator eagerly met with reporters, outlining his generally pro-industry positions, but pledging to put consumers — and the long-term health of the economy — first.

... During the past 20 years, PACs and employees of finance-related firms have contributed more than $13 million to Dodd's election efforts, including nearly $6 million in the past two years. Among members of Congress, only leading presidential candidates — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and John Kerry — have collected more money from the sector.

But now, some of Dodd's heartiest patrons have become the poster companies for the Wall Street implosion: AIG Insurance, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns. And although Dodd has emerged in recent weeks as a key player in efforts to stabilize the economy, the five-term senator is also facing criticism that he and others in Washington did too little, too late to rein in those generous companies before the crash.

... "It's an ugly system, and I hate it," Dodd said of the campaign-finance game. But he added, "I never have — nor would I ever — let a campaign contribution affect what I care about, what I champion, how I vote, how I hold hearings. Ever."

Read more: http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-dodd0929.artsep29,0,3321771.story

[davidinalameda]

1. that's how the game is played

he's chair of the banking committee; he gets money from the bank industry

I'm sure his repug predecessor did as well

[Dr.Phool]

2. It's time to stop playing that game.

[ShortnFiery]

3. Exactly. Dodd also scored a "very low interest" rate loan for one of his HOMES.

:grr:

[balantz]

4. I'll post this again.

It appears Dodd didn't even make out as well as some.


http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/money-and-votes-aligned-in-con.html


Money and Votes Aligned in Congress's Last Debate Over Bank Regulation


The last time Congress seriously debated how to regulate the financial industry, the result was legislation that allowed the nation's largest banks to get even larger and take risks that had been prohibited since the Great Depression. A look back at that debate, which was over the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, reveals that campaign contributions may have influenced the votes of politicians who, a decade later, are now grappling with the implosion of the giant banks they helped to foster.

Looking back at the vote on the 1999 act, and the campaign contributions that led up to it, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has found that those members of Congress who supported lifting Depression-era restrictions on commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies received more than twice as much money from those interests than did those lawmakers who opposed the measure.

-snip-

Nine years later, Congress is debating a proposal from the Treasury Secretary to assume the bad investments that are weighing down the nation's financial institutions, at taxpayer expense. And lobbyists representing the financial services industry are trying to once again shape fast-moving legislation to their clients' benefit. Whether campaign contributions will again correlate to congressional votes remains to be seen.

The following chart summarizes the votes and money around Gramm-Leach-Bliley in 1999. Below it is a table of all current members of Congress, how much money their campaign committees have received from the financial sector in their congressional careers and how they voted on the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act. An "A" indicates they were absent for the 1999 vote, as McCain was. An empty vote column, as with Obama, indicate the lawmaker was not in office at the time.


-snip-


Financial sector contributions to Congress, 1989-2008



Office FirstLastPState GrandTotal Vote
S Hillary Clinton (D-NY) $31,040,714
S Barack Obama (D) $27,942,613
S John McCain (R) $26,593,411 A
S John Kerry (D-Mass) $19,094,828 Y
S Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn) $13,204,556 Y
S Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) $12,795,946 Y
S Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) $9,972,924 Y
S Arlen Specter (R-Pa) $5,652,910 Y
S Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) $4,678,993
S Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) $4,669,788 Y
S Max Baucus (D-Mont) $4,491,183 Y
S Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) $4,437,474 Y
S Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala) $4,360,242 N
H Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) $4,117,402 Y
S Evan Bayh (D-Ind) $3,974,396 Y
S John Cornyn (R-Texas) $3,957,686
S Robert Menendez (D-NJ) $3,898,822 Y
S Norm Coleman (R-Minn) $3,864,281
S Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del) $3,714,310 Y
S Jon L. Kyl (R-Ariz) $3,700,309 Y
H Spencer Bachus (R-Ala) $3,699,199 Y
S Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) $3,570,557 Y
S Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) $3,537,897 Y
S Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)


-snip-

[rayofreason]

8. How did Obama...

...rack up such huge amounts in such a short time in the Senate?

[balantz]

9. Good question.

Unfortunately such questioning is frowned upon here.

If we don't ask such questions, and we continue to keep these leaders of ours on pedestals, then we will suffer longer and much, much harder.

[apnu]

10. They knew he was a rising star, and guessed rightly that he was running for Preident starting in 04.

The lobby game is played that way. Buy 'em early and young, corruption lasts forever.

[greyghost]

11. Spot on!

[jobycom]

13. Because he was a presidential candidate, as were the other top five.

They had a national base to draw from, whereas the local politicians need less money and have less exposure to the national donors. Also, it's much more lucrative to buy a president, especially if you get in on the ground floor.

I honestly don't care where my candidates get their money, I only care how they vote. When I contribute to a candidate, I contribute to one who has voted the way I want, and I do so expecting them to continue to support the issues important to me. The same is true of mega-donors. It's not a simple case of a corporation saying "You vote for me, I give you $27 million." It's more often the case that the corporation says "Who is supporting what we want? Give them money, so we can keep them in office." Those who vote the way corporations want then wind up with the money to win, and those who vote against these mega-donors wind up hopelessly outfunded and looking for a gimmic to get elected.

It's just not a simple picture, and it has no simple answer. Public financing would just cut down on advertisements, so people would be more dependent on the media for their info, or on the handful of commercials that did get produced--not to mention it would prevent the Sierra Club and such groups from helping a candidate, too. The simple fact is that wealth has always controlled power, even in non-democratic societies. The King of England in the Middle Ages gave special treatment to the Duke who could give him the most money and soldiers for his wars. When the middle classes began to gain wealth, the King would often side with a rich merchant over his own nobility.

What we can do to fight it is, first, never stop fighting, and second, wait for the opportune moment. I heard Granny D once talk about this, and it stuck with me. She advocated campaign finance reform when no one was listening. Then, in 2001, because of a series of sudden events, everyone wanted campaign reform, and they got legislation passed. She said that was a lesson--that even though it seems hopeless, you do the work, prepare the strategy, make the contacts, and you wait, because eventually the mood will change, maybe only for a moment, and when it does, if you are the one with everything ready, you are the one who succeeds.

So that's our job. Keep fighting, wait for the mood to change. Now is the perfect time. Now people are angry at corporate abuse, and Wall Street recklessness, at corporate welfare. Now people can see what we've been yelling about. Now is the time they are listening to us. Hopefully our leaders will realize that, and act.

Sorry so long. I like to ramble. No one reads my stuff, anyway. :)

[karynnj]

19. This ignores that all the Democrats, except Hollings voted against the bill

when it was presented to the Senate. McCain voted for it. They are using the near unanimous vote on the conference bill. This seriously misrepresents the situation - McCain was campaigning in NH and didn't come back for a bill his vote wasn't needed for.

[balantz]

20. So they voted correctly but the numbers added up anyway.

There is an awful lot of money for those at the top of that list.

And now they support the bailout.

WTF?

[karynnj]

21. Look at the chart in my first link

The reason Kerry and Obama and to some degree Dodd are at the top is the money from individuals who work for the company. Mentally resort the list using just PAC money - the top three are now all Republicans. The fact is that on any company's list, Obama, Hillary Clinton and Kerry will be high - Why? In each of their cases more than a million people contributed to their Presidential campaigns. Those people mostly have jobs. Those jobs are in companies - and those contributions count towards the company.

This is being distorted now and it was distorted in the primaries by Edwards when he accused Obama and HRC from getting more money from teh insurance company. In fact, had his appeals been more successful those individuals would have contributed to him.

As to why they are backing a bailout - to do nothing could well be catastrophic. Many small businesses need loans that give them the capital to pay for the raw materials and labor for products that they only receive income from when they are finished and sold. If credit freezes, these businesses will did when in fact they were profitable but needed loans for cash flow.

I have no idea what you do for a living or the type of community you live in, but most of us will know someone laid off because a company closes for lack of a loan. In small towns where a substantial number of people work for that company everything goes into a downward spiral. The town loses money in taxes as homes are abandoned. Stores lose customers. etc

Paul Krugman was very negative about Paulson's plan, but it is his opinion that the bill is now far better and should be passed. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/opinion/29krugman.html?hp

[balantz]

5. Sorry, my last post was meant as a reply to the OP. n/t

[davidinalameda]

22. as long as money talks, it's not going to stop

and if we quit playing it before the other side does, we're going to lose every time

[fascisthunter]

6. yeah... and it's time to make these "Game Players" Acountable

for fucking this country over, regardless of what political party they belong to....

[fascisthunter]

7. Thanks a lot... Hope You Enjoy that Money

dick head!

[brentspeak]

14. Dodd is one of the good guys

He is not responsible for this mess.

[fascisthunter]

15. He Wants to Bail out the Very People Who BRIBED HIM

That's right... I call it BRIBERY. Others call it business as usual. If he were one of the "good" guys, I'd say he was too compromised to do any good when the shit hits the fan.

[balantz]

17. Good guys who don't work for us are good guys for whom? n/t

[fascisthunter]

18. So He Throws us Scraps and Hands Billions to Wall Street

...but hey... he's a GOOD guy.

[dgibby]

12. US Congress

bought and paid for by the central banks!:grr:

[karynnj]

16. This is a misuse of the campaign donation information

1) It repeats a constantly cited Republican talking point by saying that Barack Obama and John Kerry, along with Chris Dodd have received the most money from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. This is extremely misleading because it is intended to imply the money is from the company.

In addition to PAC money, individual contributions to political campaigns by people who work for these companies are included in those totals. When you donate money, you have to identify the company you work for and your contribution is aggregated with others from your company. The report on the open secrets.org website, shows that the vast majority of money going to Kerry and Obama was from individual contributions. Only $2000 and $6000 respectively was from the PAC. They are among the highest on the list because of their Presidential campaigns. The Republicans raised far less money this year and President Bush was obviously not on the list of Senators.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html

2) Here is a link to a chart that shows the donations from Freddie and Fannie corporate officers, lobbyists and directors to McCain and Obama - you will see McCain got $169,000 and Obama $16,000.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7191963&mesg_id=7192463

It does look like Dodd gets a fair amount of banking money - but you need to prove favors done etc before there is anything wrong with that. There is no problem with either Kerry or Obama here - they will be high on the list for probably any industry because of the money raised for the Presidential campaign.

[WildClarySage]

23. I agree with others who have been reasonably unconcerned

13mil over 20 years does not, in my mind, suggest a massive bribery attempt. I would like to know how much of that was from employees under the employer's umbrella and what the republican who preceded him would have received.

[Honeycombe8]

24. They contribute to a lot of politicians. Mainly Repubs, but influential Dems, also. That'spolitics

What matters is how the politicians then vote.

What do you expect them to do...not accept any money from anyone who has any stake in any vote? Such contributors do not exist.