Colorado Senator Michael Bennet: A Goldman Sachs Democrat
February 2, 2011
Although the percentage of donations given by Goldman Sachs to Democrats running for federal office plummeted from close to $80,000 in 2008 per candidate to less than $7,000 per candidate in 2010, Colorado junior senator Michael Bennet was still among top Goldman Sachs recipients in 2010, with a total donation from the financial giant of $13,500. Bennet also ranked in the top 13 of Goldman Sachs’ Democratic recipients.
Of those top 13 Goldman Sachs Democrats, only three—Bennet, Rep. Melissa Bean of Illinois, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada—were located outside the Northeast. Bean lost her seat in November despite $1 million dollars in combined financial support from Goldman Sachs and other leaders in the insurance, securities and investment, legal, real estate, pharmaceuticals, and banking industries, including JP Morgan Chase.
Here in Colorado, Bennet nearly lost his seat in the U.S. Senate despite his healthy campaign coffers. Now that he’s set to continue as Colorado’s junior senator for another term, Imagine A Great Election will continue to watch with great interest to see how well he manages to walk the fine line between cozying up to donors such as Goldman Sachs and doing what’s best for those who voted for him.
In October 2009, The Denver Post also questioned the ability of Bennet to accept the benefits of “Wall Street largess” and not operate as though he were indebted to the big banks that support him.
As The Post put it and various reporting agencies have documented, Bennet campaign donors have included “CEOs and principle partners of major financial firms in New York, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles” as well as “managers at Goldman Sachs, the hedge fund Jet Capital Investors, and Credit Suisse.”
Bennet was quoted by The Post as saying such donors are simply acquaintances from his days as an employee of billionaire Philip Anschutz, “or friends of those contacts.” Bennet also added the money donated by such connections “doesn’t buy anything from me.”
Dodd-Frank and Pay It Back Sound Bites In July 2010, the passage into law of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, an ambitious piece of legislation that includes Bennet’s own Pay It Back Amendment, was touted by Bennet as proof of his determination to back reform that would pay off for Main Street as it punished Wall Street for the many ways leading banks had wreaked havoc with world economies.
But some have questioned not only the law’s real ability to effect change but its inherent constitutionality, and the Pay It Back Amendment simply ensures any bailout funds paid back to the government by the banks would help pay down the $1.3 trillion debt rather than be spent on other projects.
Still, Bennet has asserted that the “groundbreaking consumer protection reform” passed last year will protect “taxpayers from bank bailouts and the very practices on Wall Street that brought down the world’s most productive economy.” Calling it the “strongest reform of Wall Street” since the Depression, Bennet promised the law would “end taxpayer-funded bailouts, bring more transparency and accountability to Wall Street and protect and empower…consumers.”
While all this made for good campaign sound bites that painted Bennet as a strong supporter of Wall Street reform, his banking and investment donors continued to pour funds into his campaign. Why would such powerful members of the finance industry as “CEOs and principle partners of major financial firms in New York, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles” as well as “managers at Goldman Sachs, the hedge fund Jet Capital Investors, and Credit Suisse” invest in the campaign of a self-proclaimed liberal Wall Street reformer rather than his Republican opponent? Is it possible Bennet’s vocal support for a reform law that has little chance of truly impacting Wall Street covers up his true allegiances?