45 GOP Senators Filibustering Consumer Protection Nominee Have Received Millions From Wall Street...

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45 GOP Senators Filibustering Consumer Protection Nominee Have Received Millions From Wall Street This Year

By Pat Garofalo

The Senate today is scheduled to vote on the nomination of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new agency created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. It’s unlikely, at this point, that Democrats have enough votes to overcome a Republican filibuster. Forty-five Republican senators have pledged to block any nominee until structural changes are made to the Bureau that would undermine its effectiveness.

Wall Street banks have been fighting the new agency tooth and nail, and as it turns out, the 45 Republicans who have vowed to block the agency’s director have been lavished with donations from the financial services industry, as the Public Campaign Action Fund noted:

– The 44 Senate Republicans who signed a letter in May pledging to filibuster any CFPB nominee (plus Sen. Dean Heller who later added his name once appointed to the Senate) have received over $6.5 million from the financial industry in 2011 and nearly $125.6 million over their careers.

– Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking committee (and lead signer of the letter), has received at least $81,850 in 2011 and $6.2 million from the FIRE sector throughout his career.

Shelby, in fact, received a $5,000 donation from Goldman Sachs the day after he denounced the Bureau as “dangerous.”

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Shelby is a perfect example of the difference between individual employee donations and PAC's.

Think Progress:

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A day after Sen. Shelby published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about his opposition to Cordray, the Alabama Senator’s political action committee (PAC), Defend America, received a $5,000 donation from the Goldman Sachs PAC and $1,500 from the PAC for MFS, a Boston-based investment firm.

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