Jim Himes - "The Fixer"

Posted by Bob MacGuffie, 4-29-14    In a recent column in the Danbury News Times, Neil Vigdor called Jim Himes "a fixer for the House Democrats when it comes to raising campaign cash."  Indeed, as the National Finance Chair of the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Jim Himes holds one of the most partisan political offices in Washington.  He uses it to tap the richest honey-pots in the land to fuel his campaign and those of other liberals seeking to retain their hold on federal power.  He's got the perfect pedigree for the job - a member of the House Financial Services Committee, a former Goldman Sachs exec representing a district brimming with hedge funds and financial services companies seeking additional advantages in financial services law.  And there's no doubt such contributions have secured advantages for financial institutions in legislation as it is proposed.     

Crony corporatism, the system in which Jim Himes has rapidly become a high practitioner, is responsible for the '08 financial crisis and the listless economy in which we still find ourselves.  As is widely acknowledged, financial services companies over the past thirty-plus years have been prolific campaign contributors to candidates of both parties.  As a result, the financial services legislation passed into law over the past several decades has been so infested with special advantages for favored corporate campaign contributors, that the financial system collapsed because it was so subverted.  The SEC's raising of the loan leverage ratio from 10:1 to 30:1 at the behest of leading bank contributors in April 2004 is one such example which contributed mightily to the financial collapse.  Consider the U.S. financial system a gyroscope that's been grounded by too many hangers-on.  In reality, we haven't had a level playing field free-market capitalist system in about a hundred years.

Enter the "fixer", Jim Himes.  In just four years in congress he's vaulted into his party's national campaign finance chair.  That kind of leap doesn't "just happen" to congressional sophomores.  He's accomplished this by a) voting as Nancy Pelosi directs; b) promising her and other Democrat power brokers that he can access the necessary campaign cash; and c) promising the financial companies that he can get their needs written into law.  For those who doubt, let's examine his voting record.

First, he votes with Nancy Pelosi about 95 percent of the time.  She provides him some "cover" votes, but on all issues important to her, Himes votes with Pelosi's extreme agenda 100 percent.  In just the past year, some particularly Pelosi-driven partisan votes include:  a vote against a bill to prioritize U.S. debt payments in the event the debt ceiling is hit (passed May'13);  a vote against the Keystone pipeline (passed May'13);  a vote against a bill to allow Americans to keep their current medical plans thru 2014 (passed Nov'13);  a vote against a bill funding the Vets Admin during the Oct'13 shutdown (passed);  a vote against a bill to restrict NSA phone record collection to only people under investigation (defeated July'13);  a vote against a bill streamlining natural gas pipeline permitting (passed Nov'13).  Though space doesn't allow, Mr. Himes has made it clear over the past five years that Nancy Pelosi will pull Jim Himes's chain whenever she sees fit, and he barks in tune.

Next, he set out to prove to Party leadership that he has the fundraising prowess to chair the DCCC's financing effort.  In the '11-'12 election cycle he raised $1.05 million for the DCCC - more than any congressman other than those in the DCCC leadership.  To seal the deal he introduced selected DCCC leaders to some of his favorite Fairfield County hedge fund honey-pots.  Once he was named the DCCC Finance Chair inFeb'13 he began scheduling exclusive fundraising dinners with major bank execs to open channels of communication, including one particularly juicy one sponsored by Depository Trust on 4-16-13 at Fiola in DC. 

Then according to a 5-23-13 NYT article written by Eric Lipton, without missing a beat, Jim Himes set out to "incorporate 70 Citicorp-drafted lines into an 85 line bill exempting broad swaths of trades from new regulation."  http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/banks-lobbyists-help-in-drafting-financial-bills/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0  The bill "sailed through the House Financial Services Committee over the objections of the Treasury Dept."  Also according to Lipton, six days after the vote Himes's fundraising team arranged for seven freshman Democrats to meet with bank executives whose employers stood to gain mightily from the legislation.  Himes and company then proceeded to shepherd the bill through the full House and it passed in early November.  And thus was born Jim Himes's new moniker - the fixer!    

Now that his party fundraising, contributor access, and legislation delivery channels were greased and proven, the fixer pivoted to the fundraising needs of his own campaign.  OpenSecrets.org develops an excellent analysis of how the ruling class funds its political campaigns and provides the following as of 3-31-14 for Mr. Himes in the 2014 cycle.  Total cash raised to date is $1,775,000 for both his campaign committee and his leadership PAC.  A full 40% of his cash is raised from PACs - and $430,000 (70%) of that PAC money comes from the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate industries, the very industries he oversees from his seat on the Financial Services Committee.

In total, the top five industries contributing to the fixer are: Securities & Investment, Insurance, Commercial Banking, Real Estate, and Law Firms.  His top five contributors are:  Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, GE, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan.  Do we perceive a pattern emerging here?  These industries are getting the advantages they paid for.  As for any thought of representing we-the-people, it's not likely - only $49,000 (3%) of his contributions are classified as from "small individuals."  What he offers in abundance for his constituents is lip-service, deceptive town hall presentations, and outright lies.  After all, with these campaign finance realities, what else do you have left for your constituents?

So, in just five years our new congressman has propelled himself to the center of power in Washington, becoming the fixer for the Democrat Congressional Campaign funding machine.  He now represents Washington to us, rather than us to the federal government as he was hired to do.  And the irony is - he's going to need all that campaign cash to cover up all the deception, misrepresentation, misdirection and lies he's told to his employers, the people of CT-4.