And the award for most partisan federal government agency with the most donations to Democrats goes to … the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
According to campaign finance data released Thursday, employees of the bureau — created under the watchful eye of liberal Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — gave 100 percent of its donations to Democratic candidates in 2016, with $50,000 of political aid money divided between Hillary Clinton and independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who battled it out for the Democratic presidential nomination.
More than 300 political donations came from the federal government agency, the Washington Free Beacon reports.
The CFPB was part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that became law in 2010 and gave the federal government sweeping regulatory powers in response to the ongoing banking and financial crisis of the period. The legislation, known as the Dodd-Frank Act, was first announced in 2009 and was spearheaded by former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank and then-Senate Banking Chair Chris Dodd, both Democrats.
Republican Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy, as a consistent critic of the CFPB has tried to reduce the bureau’s powers. He says Democrats want to maintain the bureau’s interventionist control over the U.S. economy.
“CFPB employees fell over each other to give money to Hillary because she supported CFPB’s desire to remain in the shadows and unaccountable to the American people,” Duffy told the Free Beacon. “No one is shocked that Washington bureaucrats would donate to the candidate who promised to maintain and expand onerous Dodd-Frank regulations that crush our community banks and local credit unions.”
Employees of the Peace Corps and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were runners up in the partisan donations category: $25,000 went to Democratic candidates or causes from the Peace Corps and $3,000 from the NTSB.
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Act and, as Democrats fear, the CFPB with it: “Dodd-Frank has made it impossible for bankers to function,” Trump said. “It makes it very hard for bankers to loan money for people to create jobs, for people with businesses to create jobs. And that has to stop.”