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For lobbyists, it doesn't get any better....
Nearby, supporters of Representative Michael E. Capuano, Democrat of Massachusetts, gathered that evening at a Capitol Hill town house for a $1,000-a-head fund-raiser. Just as that was wrapping up, Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, was feted by campaign donors at nearby Nationals Park at a game against the Mets.
It was just another day in the nonstop fund-raising cycle for members of the House Financial Services Committee, which has become a magnet for money from Wall Street and other deep-pocketed contributors, especially as Congress moves to finalize the most sweeping new financial regulations in seven decades.
Executives and political action committees from Wall Street banks, hedge funds, insurance companies and related financial sectors have showered Congressional candidates with more than $1.7 billion in the last decade, with much of it going to the financial committees that oversee the industry’s operations.
The financial industry was confident that a provision that would force banks to spin off their derivatives businesses would be stripped out, but in the final rush to pass the bill, that did not happen.
The opposition comes not just from the financial industry. The chairman of the Federal Reserve and other senior banking regulators opposed the provision, and top Obama administration officials have said they would continue to push for it to be removed.
And Wall Street lobbyists are mounting an 11th-hour effort to remove it when House and Senate conferees begin meeting, perhaps this week, to reconcile their two bills.
Lobbyists say they are already considering the possible makeup of the conference panel to focus on office visits and potential fund-raising.
The House’s version of the bill does not include the tougher derivatives ban, and Wall Street lobbyists said one chief target would be Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads the Financial Services Committee and shepherded the House bill. Others include Representative Paul E. Kanjorski, the Pennsylvania Democrat with a senior role on the House financial services panel, and Representative Collin C. Peterson, Democrat of Minnesota, who leads the House Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over futures contracts and derivatives.
“This is not the end of the process,” said David Hirschmann, senior vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, which has spent more than $3 million to lobby against parts of the bill.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/us...ef=todayspaper
"I told you we could get more...."