Credit unions remain far more bipartisan, and generous, in their political giving than banks are, according to federal election records.
“Credit unions do a better job than banks in appealing across the political spectrum,” said John McKechnie, senior partner at Total Spectrum and former CUNA director of political affairs, in discussing the rationale behind the bipartisanship.
CULAC, the Political Action Committee operated by CUNA spent $4,782,302 in political contributions and independent expenditures for House and Senate candidates this year, according to a pre-election report filed with the Federal Election Commission. The report reflects contributions made by Oct. 19.
CUNA officials have said they expect to spend $6 million during the political campaign.
NAFCU had contributed $356,500 to candidates through the end of September—its most recent report on file with the FEC.
The PACs do not endorse or contribute to presidential candidates.
As a comparison, the American Bankers Association had contributed $2,942,361 to candidates through Oct. 19.
And the PAC operated by the Independent Community Bankers of America had contributed $1,844,450 to House and Senate candidates through Oct. 19.
Credit unions were much more bipartisan in their giving to candidates, according to records compiled from the FEC records by the Center for Responsive Politics as of Oct. 12.
The Center reported that CULAC had made 55% of its contributions to Republicans and 45% to Democrats. NAFCU was a bit less bipartisan, giving 61% to Republicans and 39% to Democrats.
But ABA’s committee had made 77% to Republicans and 23% to Democrats and the ICBA had given 74% to Republicans and 26% to Democrats.
During the campaign, Democrats have been particularly critical of big banks—blaming them for the financial crisis and saying they need to be tightly regulated. And that rhetoric became even louder following the recent crisis at Wells Fargo.
In fact, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, went so far as to call for the breakup of Wells Fargo.
“Given the increasingly hot rhetoric that we’ve heard on the campaign trail between Democrats and the banking industry, it will be fun to watch the steel cage match between them that is likely in the next Congress,” McKechnie said.
