Wall St. Cash Still Flooding Congress

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Here’s a shocker: As lawmakers in Washington continue crafting a bill to crack down on Wall Street, their efforts to rake in donations from the financial services industry show no sign of stopping. Bloomberg News reports today that, in looking at fundraising calendars for House Democrats and Republicans and Senate Republicans, there have been at least 20 scheduled fundraisers for politicians held by finance lobbyists or organized with financial industry donors in mind. Lawmakers, then, are walking the finest of lines, claiming to support new financial reforms while wooing representatives of an industry fighting many of those same new rules.

Bloomberg cites the case of Rep. John Adler, (D-NJ). Last month, Adler said in a statement, “Our families demand accountability for Wall Street’s actions and Congress must stand up to special interests and deliver.” But this week, Adler will host a “financial services dinner” with a minimum contribution of $1,000. In a similar conflict, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a leading GOP figure on financial reform for months and member of the Senate banking committee, is scheduled to attend a fundraising dinner tomorrow that is co-hosted by Bank of America, the country’s largest bank and a major lobbying force on financial reform.

These kinds of events, of course, part and parcel of the finance industry’s efforts to blunt new reforms. To wit: In 2010, finance, real estate, and other business sectors have contributed $70 million to members of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Those same interests have spent more than $260 million on lobbying Congress. All told, that’s $330 million—or 6,600 times more than the real median household income in the US—to sway Washington lawmakers and see things their way.

While several spokespeople for congressmen said these types of events don’t “color” the way they vote on bills and amendments, there’s no denying the obvious conflict of interest with lawmakers taking Wall Street’s money at the same time they’re rewriting how the financial markets function. “How hard are you going to be on somebody who’s handing you money?” Bill Allison with the Sunlight Foundation told Bloomberg.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate