Money Talks

Capital Eye (link courtesy of TPM) has published an analysis of the campaign contributions of the leading credit card companies to Senators between 1999 and 2004. Unsurprisingly, those who got more money from the industry tended to vote in favor the industry-sponsored bankruptcy bill.

An analysis of the contributions shows that senators who voted to pass the bill raised an average of nearly twice as much between 1999 and 2004 from the finance and credit industry as those who voted against the bill.

What I found interesting was the break down of contributions by party:



This chart shows the industry shelling out much more money to Democrats than to Republicans for their yes votes. One would expect conservatives to generally support the bill. (Actually, there is considerable conservative grass roots opposition out there, but at the establishment level, big business typically wins Republican votes.) So, either the Democrats simply had a higher price tag for their vote, or the industry was seeking bipartisan support for the bill, which would present it in a better light, and so they threw more money at the Democrats to bring them on board. The success of this campaign is seen when Senator Biden wrote in the LA Times, "But over several congresses it has earned the kind of bipartisan consensus only balanced legislation can achieve." The Capital Eye analysis shows Biden got the third highest contribution totals from the industry.