Current House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer “serve the banks” Bachus (R-AL) will have to give up his gavel in the next Congress due to committee term limits. His likely replacement is Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).
Acknowledging that Hensarling will hold the reins, banks and other financial firms are pouring money into his campaign coffers, despite the extremely safe Republican district in which he is running:
Campaign money has flowed Hensarling’s way, much of it from insurance companies, securities brokers, investment firms and banks. Together, employees of those industries or their political action committees have donated $630,447 to his campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Hensarling’s fundraising haul this year is 66 percent more than he received in 2010, when Republicans surged to win control of the House. […]
Separately, Hensarling has raised $967,421 for his political action committee, another source of money to donate to Republicans. JPMorgan Chase is the largest source of donations to Hensarling’s leadership PAC. Other major donors include hedge fund Mason Capital Management and Bank of America.
The financial sector is far and away Hensarling’s largest contributor, giving him $1.6 million overall in this cycle alone. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, his next largest set of contributors — “miscellaneous business” — gave him $232,000.
As Financial Services Committee Chairman, Hensarling can be expected to continue the House Republican assault on the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Hensarling was a staunch opponent of Dodd-Frank when the law was being debated, and particularly the law’s creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He also called a tax on big banks “frankly lunacy.” Now he is poised to be the big banks’ top man on the Financial Services Committee as it attempts to cripple Dodd-Frank.