WASHINGTON -- The financial industry last year made more than $1 billion in campaign contributions.

House Republicans, including all five from New Jersey, voted Thursday to repeal regulations designed to reign in Wall Street financial practices that led to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

The Financial Choice Act passed the House, 233-186, with every Republican but one voting yes and every Democrat voting no. New Jersey's delegation split along party lines.

Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-3rd Dist.), who saw his banking contributions spike after being named to the member of the House Financial Services Committee, co-sponsored the measure.

The action came as the nation is still recovering from the Great Recession, which a bipartisan independent national commission blamed in part on "widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision."

"It is beyond disappointing that so many New Jersey congressmen would put Wall Street and big donor interests before that of their own constituents," said New Jersey Citizen Action Executive Director Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, whose group opposed the legislation.

Financial industry employees, including those working in insurance and real estate, contributed $1.1 billion for the 2016 elections, 54 percent of it for Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington research group.

More than half of that amount, $564 million, came from those working on Wall Street, and was more than any other industry.

"The wages of their largesse are reflected in the priorities that are in the bill," said Brian Marshall, policy counsel for Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of consumer, labor, business, and community groups that supports financial regulations. "The priority is on deregulating the largest financial institutions in the world."

MacArthur, is the only New Jersey lawmaker to co-sponsor the bill. He and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th) both got more campaign contributions from the financial industry after being named to the House Financial Services panel. Gottheimer voted no on the bill.

"Our community banks have been burdened with 22,000 pages of regulations, which have shut down lending and have literally shut down one community bank per day somewhere in the U.S.," MacArthur said.

Rep. Leonard Lance (R-7th Dist.) also cited the regulatory burden on community banks "despite having nothing to do with the financial crisis."

Camden R. Fine, president and chief executives of the Independent Community Bankers of America, lauded the bill's passage, saying it would "enhance economic and job growth nationwide."

"Meaningful regulatory relief for the nation's community banks is needed to improve lending and strengthen economic growth at the local level," he said.

While MacArthur and other supporters cited the existing law's impact on community banks, many of the provisions in the Republican bill were designed to help larger institutions.

The measure, for example, weakened the Community Financial Protection Bureau, which fined Wells Fargo $100 million in September for secretly opening accounts in the names of its customers.

Gottheimer agreed that regulations on community banks should be eased but the Republican measure "was the opposite of common sense. It simply swings the pendulum too far the other way, instead of taking smart incremental steps, and risks another financial meltdown."

The House GOP's actions contradicted the campaign rhetoric of Donald Trump, who railed against the big banks, most notably Goldman Sachs, while running for president.

After winning, he named several alums of the investment bank to top administration posts, including Steven Mnuchin as Treasury secretary; Gary Cohn as the top economic policy adviser; and Stephen Bannon, who ran the Breitbart website that was a favorite of white supremacists, as a top White House aide.

Trump's nominee to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, was a partner in a firm that lobbied Congress and federal agencies last year on the banking law, named for former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

"The rhetoric had little to do with the policy agenda of the GOP," said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public policy at Princeton University. "These are discrepancies that become more apparent each time that the GOP gets deeper into its policies."

The vote marked the latest effort to undo a major accomplishment of President Barack Obama. House Republicans also have voted to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with legislation that the Congressional Budget Office said would leave 23 million more Americans without health insurance and make it harder for some with pre-existing conditions to obtain coverage.

Democratic lawmakers questioned why the regulations were being repealed while the economy had yet to fully recover.

"We know what this devastation looks like as communities across this nation continue to be an example, especially in New Jersey as we are still recovering from this ruin," said Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th Dist.). "Rolling back Dodd-Frank protections would disproportionately harm New Jerseyans, a state that still leads the nation in foreclosures."

And Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st Dist.), said. "It's as if Republicans have collective amnesia about the financial crisis of 2008."

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.