Freddie, Fannie, Merrill, et al stopped their political donations last month

They left with a whimper.

Once huge campaign donors, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and AIG all but ended their generosity in August as they teetered on the brink of insolvency.

Since the start of 2007, Freddie and Fannie had given a combined $829,000 to federal candidates and campaign accounts. Merrill had given $2.1 million, Lehman $1.9 million, and AIG had handed out $664,000. Here is one previous post on the contributions. Here is another.

But suddenly, the spigot shut off, as often happens during insolvency. Perhaps they saw troubled times coming, because for the most part, they stopped giving campaign donations in August.

AIG is one exception. It contributed $2,500 on Aug. 27 to a political action committee controlled by former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and another $1,000 to Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) on Aug. 8, newly filed campaign finance reports showed today.

Fannie, Freddie, Merrill and Lehman gave no donations, their filings with the Federal Election Commission reveal. Rep Steve Kagen (D-Wisc.) did receive $1,000 from Fannie Mae's political action committee in July. Apparently, he saw the debacle coming.

Fannie lists the check as being returned on Aug. 29.

— Dan Morain

Comments

[Laura]

Fannie sure was generous with our money - from OpenSecrets.org:

All Recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Campaign Contributions, 1989-2008
Name - Office - State - Party - Grand Total
Dodd, Christopher J - S - CT D - $165,400
Obama, Barack - S - IL - D - $126,349
Kerry, John - S - MA - D - $111,000
Bennett, Robert F - S - UT - R - $107,999
Bachus, Spencer - H - AL- R - $103,300

[Mark]

This article is pretty short-sighted, and shows how little the author knows about (corporate) PAC giving. The reason for the complete drop in PAC disbursements in August is because of something called Recess. Members of Congress return to their home to campaign, host town meetings, and glad-hand. Now I wouldn’t want to make a blanket statement and say that PACs don’t support any ‘in-district’ events, but those and exceptions, and not the rule.

Before we jump to any conclusions about PAC giving for these companies, I’d suggest waiting until the Oct. 20th FEC filing – which contains the September giving totals – and see what happened during the first three weeks of September.

In the interest of full disclosure, over the last 12 years I’ve managed three ‘Fortune 50’ corporate PACs, and to the best of my recollection, I’ve handed out something like 4 or 5 checks during the month of August.

[Arius]

We are discussing this very topic at http://www.pennjersey.info/forums/politics/7599-freddie-fannie-merrill-et-al-stopped-their-political-donations-last-month.html