Blog - Big Banks Use Revolving Door to Fight FinReg

One of the best ways for a corporation to affect government policy is to hire lobbyists with personal connections to the people they will be lobbying. Not surprisingly, this is one of the technique the big financial companies have been using to fight financial reform legislation. Last year, 71% of the lobbyists hired by the six biggest bank-holding companies were former government officials, the Sunlight Foundation’s Paul Blumenthal reports.

Goldman Sachs, generally considered the most politically-savvy of the big financial firms, leads the bunch with 82% of their lobbyists being former government employees. Check out this infographic for the full rundown of former government workers now lobbying for the big six banks.

How many of these revolving-door lobbyists used to work for Congress?

Fifty-five of the 145 former government employees previously worked in the Senate, the current point of lobbying in the financial regulation debate. Fourteen of these former staffers turned lobbyists previously worked for the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs or members of the committee. The senator with the most former staffers working as lobbyists for these big banks is Sen. Max Baucus with four former staffers who have gone through the revolving door.

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The former staffers turned big bank lobbyists worked in other parts of government aside from the Senate. Sixty-five of the 145 previously worked in the House of Representatives. Forty-two worked previously in the executive branch in some capacity and of those with executive experience eight previously worked for either the Treasury Department or the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Related: see also this post on which senators are getting the most finance insustry money right now and why.