Wall Street leads surge in corporate political giving

By Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Big business is shoveling more money than ever into U.S. political campaigns, with Wall Street donations way up, a watchdog group said on Tuesday.

The securities and investment industry -- which includes brokerages, hedge funds and private equity firms -- registered the sharpest increase in giving since 2004 among all industry sectors studied by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Record-breaking contributions from the nation's biggest political givers are the result of a wide-open race for the White House and last year's power shift in Congress, said Sheila Krumholz, the nonpartisan center's executive director.

"There is an intensity to the fund raising for 2008 that we've never seen before, which means the candidates and parties will be all the more beholden" to big donors, she said.

The nonprofit center analyzes campaign finance and lobbying records at the Federal Election Commission (FEC), a government agency that enforces U.S. campaign finance law.

The analysis includes contributions to federal candidates and parties from individuals working in an industry and from associated political action committees.

In both presidential and congressional contests, Democrats are benefiting more than Republicans from the surge in business donations, with 57 percent of giving from typical big donors going to Democrats versus 43 percent in 2006 and 2004.

More money is coming in from lawyers than from any other sector, as usual. But the biggest increase in giving since 2004 is coming from financiers, whose donations are up 91 percent.