Three suburban Republicans make list for financial sector backing

Republican candidates Steve Greenberg and Steve Sauerberg along with GOP U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert landed on the Center for Responsive Politics list of "Wall Street's Favorite Candidates" Thursday.
The list calculates the congressional candidates who have the most Wall Street "investments" in their campaigns.
Greenberg, who is challenging incumbent Democrat Melissa Bean in the northwest suburban 8th District, was listed as the tenth highest candidate for congress in terms of Wall Street backing.
He has taken in more than $125,850 from the finance sector, nearly 20 percent of his total haul as of mid-year.
Biggert, who has a lot of banking interests in the west suburban 13th District, made the 10th slot for incumbents. The Hinsdale Republican raised $398,015, or 42 percent of her campaign fund, from the financial sector.
Meanwhile, Sauerberg took in nearly 16 percent of his campaign fund, more than $54,000, from the financial sector, giving him the 4th slot for U.S. Senate challengers. He hopes to unseat Democrat Dick Durbin of Springfield.
The rankings were based on campaign fund percentages.

Here is a loot at the Center for Responsive Politics' analysis:

Not at all to the chagrin of oil and gas companies (and lawmakers who have received campaign donations from them), Wall Street is the new black for congressional candidates looking to link their opponents to an unpopular industry. As federal lawmakers have wrestled with an economic bailout plan worth $700 billion, candidates who have received contributions from the financial sector are on the defensive. They don't want to appear that they have been, or would be, beholden to the companies being blamed for the economic mess, especially as voters prepare to go to the polls next month with the economy on their minds.

"It's really stunning, quite frankly, to see the economy rank so high (in importance to voters). You rarely see this sort of agreement," said Michael McDonald, a professor at George Mason University. "Some people have [likened] this to 9/11. It does have that kind of magnitude about it."

Shunning contributions from one of the most openhanded sectors in campaign finance is not an easy task for politicians. According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, congressional candidates on the November ballot have collected $120.5 million from the finance, insurance and real estate sector (FIRE), which includes the floundering investment houses, insurance companies and mortgage lenders that required the government to take drastic measures. That's 16 percent of the total money candidates have collected for their races (including only donations of more than $200, called itemized contributions). Both parties appear to rely on the finance sector equally. Democratic candidates have raised 15 percent (or $61.5 million) of their total contributions from the sector, while Republicans have raised 17 percent (or $58.9 million) of their total from FIRE.

It's no coincidence that the only House candidates who have collected more than half of their itemized contributions from the FIRE sector are all incumbents and members of the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees the very industries giving this money. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chair of the committee, has collected $815,350 from the sector this election cycle, which is just over half of his total itemized receipts. Alabama Rep. Spencer Bachus, the committee's highest-ranking Republican, has brought in slightly more than Frank, at $835,000, but that makes up 70 percent of his total. The only other candidate to receive more than half of his contributions from the sector is Pennsylvania's Paul Kanjorski, a Democrat, who collected $936,800, or 59 percent of all the itemized money he's been given for his re-election campaign.

While voters will be considering the candidates' positions on how to get the economy back in shape--and the extent to which the candidates are backed by the financial sector--certain segments of the electorate may be more upset than others, said Jim Gimpel, a political scientist at the University of Maryland. "A lot of folks in these populous, more rural districts don't have a lot of money. They don't have money in stock market funds of any kind," Gimpel said. "Why should they be taxed, is what they're thinking, to prop up some guy down in Palm Beach who is worried about his retirement account."

Contributions from Wall Street are just one factor a candidate might consider in deciding whether to support or oppose the bailout plan, and it wasn't donations alone that caused lawmakers to support deregulation over the years. But there certainly is a correlation. Last week CRP found that the 263 House members who voted in favor of the bailout bill have received an average of $833,077 since 1989 from the industries that were most interested in having the bill passed. The 171 opponents, comparatively, had collected $589,417, on average. On the Senate side, the senators who supported the bailout received an average of $3,986,723 from the finance sector since 1989--139 percent more than the opponents, who received $1,671,029, on average.

Ultimately, however, voters are less likely to consider where the congressional candidates are getting their dollars and more likely to take into account what the candidates will do to secure the sources of voters' own money. "If congressional candidates and challengers can use [Wall Street donations] effectively to show that their member of Congress, challenger, whoever, is on the side of the people being rescued, there's a chance that it could have an effect, but I don't know how much," Suzanne Robins of George Mason University said. "I think people are more concerned about hearing answers and fixing the problem."