The Wall Street–Washington Pipeline: Billions to Write Their Own Rules

The Banks That Own K Street

When the 2008 financial crisis nearly destroyed the global economy, Congress responded with Dodd-Frank — the most sweeping financial regulation in a generation. Wall Street responded with the most sweeping lobbying campaign in a generation. And Wall Street won.

Our analysis of Senate lobbying disclosure filings reveals a financial sector that treats lobbying not as a cost center, but as a core business function. The biggest banks in America maintain permanent lobbying operations that rival the budgets of small federal agencies.

The Dodd-Frank Dismantling

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010 was supposed to prevent another financial crisis. It created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, imposed stress tests on big banks, and restricted proprietary trading through the Volcker Rule. The financial industry hated every word of it.

Within months of its passage, bank lobbyists were working to weaken it. By 2018, they had succeeded: the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act rolled back key provisions, raising the threshold for "systemically important" banks from $50 billion to $250 billion in assets. Translation: dozens of large banks were freed from the toughest oversight requirements.

Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed in March 2023, was one of the banks that benefited from that rollback. It had lobbied for the change. The cost of the SVB bailout to the FDIC insurance fund: $20 billion.

What Wall Street Lobbies On

The issues that dominate financial sector lobbying filings tell a clear story — this is an industry fighting to minimize oversight at every turn:

• BNK (Banking) — Capital requirements, stress tests, lending rules
• FIN (Financial Institutions) — SEC regulations, investment rules, fiduciary standards
• TAX (Taxation) — Carried interest loophole, capital gains rates, corporate tax
• BUD (Budget/Appropriations) — Funding for regulatory agencies (less funding = less enforcement)
• TEC (Technology) — Fintech regulation, cryptocurrency rules, digital payments

The Crypto Gold Rush

No corner of the financial sector has ramped up lobbying faster than cryptocurrency. In 2020, crypto lobbying was a rounding error. By 2024, it had become one of the fastest-growing lobbying sectors in Washington.

Coinbase, the Crypto Council for Innovation, and the Blockchain Association have collectively poured millions into lobbying for favorable regulatory frameworks. Their goal: ensure that the SEC doesn't classify most crypto tokens as securities, which would subject the entire industry to traditional financial regulation.

The crypto lobby also made massive political donations in the 2024 election cycle, backing candidates who promised a friendlier regulatory environment. The result? A new Congress that's far more sympathetic to the industry's arguments than its predecessor.

The Revolving Door on Steroids

The financial sector doesn't just hire lobbyists — it hires the regulators who used to oversee it. Former SEC commissioners, Treasury Department officials, and Federal Reserve staffers cycle through the revolving door with predictable regularity.

Our Revolving Door tracker shows hundreds of former financial regulators now working as lobbyists for the banks they once supervised. When a former SEC enforcement attorney lobbies against tighter enforcement, the conflict of interest is obvious. But it's perfectly legal.

The Trade Groups: Wall Street's Hidden Army

Individual banks are only part of the picture. The financial sector's most effective lobbying is done through trade groups that allow the industry to speak with one voice while individual firms avoid public scrutiny.

SIFMA (the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association) is Wall Street's main lobbying arm, spending millions annually on issues from capital requirements to market structure reform. The Investment Company Institute represents mutual funds and ETFs. The Financial Services Forum represents the eight largest US financial institutions.

The Math of Deregulation

Here's why financial lobbying pays off so spectacularly: a single regulatory change can be worth billions. When banks successfully lobbied to weaken the Volcker Rule, it freed up tens of billions in proprietary trading capacity. When they pushed for looser capital requirements, it meant billions more available for lending — and executive bonuses.

The industry spends roughly $300-400 million per year on lobbying. The value of the deregulation it achieves? Orders of magnitude larger. As we documented in our 22,000% ROI investigation, lobbying may be the single highest-return investment in corporate America.

What This Means

The financial crisis of 2008 was supposed to be a turning point. Regulation would be tightened. Banks would be held accountable. Instead, the industry spent billions on lobbying and got most of what it wanted: weaker rules, less oversight, and a regulatory environment that prioritizes industry comfort over public protection.

The Wall Street–Washington pipeline isn't a conspiracy. It's a system — one where the industry writes the rules, hires the regulators, and funds the campaigns. Until that system changes, the next financial crisis isn't a question of if, but when.