Washington D.C. banking lobby buys ads to re-elect Rep. Poliquin

The largest financial trade group in the U.S., the American Bankers Association, has produced a new TV ad to help re-elect U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin who, the lobby says, “has fought over-regulation in Washington” as a former Wall Street investment banker who sits on the House Financial Services Committee.

The ad features images of Rep. Poliquin talking with voters intercut with images of lobstermen, shipbuilders and bustling Maine main streets over the narration, “when companies have access to capital, dreams become realities, jobs grow, and whole communities rise up.”

The ABA, which represents large financial institutions including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase & Co., began airing the ad in Maine last week in partnership with the Maine Bankers Association.

In a press release accompanying the ad, ABA president and CEO Rob Nichols commended Poliquin for his “commitment to commonsense regulation for the nation’s banks.”

The D.C.-based ABA represents the nation’s $17 trillion banking industry. In addition to educating its members about banking industry standards, ABA lobbies Congress, including members of the House Financial Services Committee, like Poliquin, who consider financial legislation and investigate banking practices.

Rep. Poliquin has built up a war chest of $2,998,395 to campaign against Democratic challenger, state Rep. Jared Golden in a toss up race to represent Maine’s 2nd congressional district. Nearly half of the contributions to the incumbent congressman’s reelection campaign so far have come from national and multinational financial industry firms, such as Citigroup Inc., Ernst & Young and T. Rowe Price. PAC money accounts for 53.35 percent of Rep. Poliquin’s campaign funds. Just 1.07 percent has come from small donors giving less than $200.

Golden’s campaign has raised less than half of Rep. Poliquin’s total, reporting $1,174,196 in contributions so far.

“The Poliquin campaign has never been straight-forward about Bruce’s work on Wall Street,” said Golden in a statement. “When they think it’s in his favor, he’ll claim he protected pension plans for working Mainers. When they worry it’s a liability, they say he never managed funds and worked in client services. Union workers at Bath Iron Works will tell you that Bruce’s investment firm mismanaged their pension fund, and workers lost out on secure retirement benefits as a result.”

The transactional relationship with Rep. Poliquin’s industry supporters is proven by his opponent’s voting record, Golden said.

“Since being elected, Poliquin has voted to take healthcare coverage from 100,000 Mainers and put thousands of jobs at rural hospitals at risk,” Golden said. “He voted for a tax break for the super rich and multinational corporations, blowing a trillion dollar hole in a budget that should have been instead used for investments in infrastructure. And to top it all off, he supported a budget plan that threatens Social Security and Medicare at the expense of our seniors.”

Rep. Poliquin voted for bills that rolled back many of the provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank bank regulatory law, the sweeping reforms that were passed in response to the 2008 financial meltdown. He voted to convert financial watchdog, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, into an executive agency funded by annual appropriations. He also voted to repeal the prohibition on banking entities engaging in proprietary trading, as well as to modify regulations governing the amount of capital that banks are required to maintain.

Working with state-level associations, ABA President Nichols says the group will identify races where bankers’ support can make a difference in the outcome of the midterm election. In addition to throwing its support behind Rep. Poliquin, the banking lobby has produced an ad in support of Rep. French Hill of Arkansas, another former banker and advocate of deregulation on the House Financial Services Committee, whom national Democrats are targeting in 2018.