OutSpent

OutSpent Commemorative Series · No. 1 · The Bank Rollback

Both parties voted for the banks.

S.2155 rolled back the rules written after the 2008 crash. Sixty-seven senators voted yes — 50 Republicans, 16 Democrats, and 1 Independent. So we minted a card for every one of them: numbered by who took the most Wall Street money — $15,256,015 from just the 12 biggest banks. This was never red versus blue. It was the banks versus you.

67 cards. One per yes vote. Find yours.

★ BOUGHT & PAID FOR ★THE BANK ROLLBACK · 2018★★$S.2155
Now 3 setsThe Drug Money (2003) · The Fine Print (2005) — see all the sets
No. 01/67VOTED YES
Mitch McConnell
R · KY
$1,075,538
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 02/67VOTED YES
Jon Tester
D · MT
$672,664
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 03/67VOTED YES
Marco Rubio
R · FL
$670,940
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 04/67VOTED YES
Tim Scott
R · SC
$581,241
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 05/67VOTED YES
Robert Portman
R · OH
$553,146
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 06/67VOTED YES
David Perdue
R · GA
$469,292
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 07/67VOTED YES
John Cornyn
R · TX
$466,548
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 08/67VOTED YES
Tom Cotton
R · AR
$466,247
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 09/67VOTED YES
Michael Bennet
D · CO
$458,615
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 10/67VOTED YES
Patrick Toomey
R · PA
$428,681
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 11/67VOTED YES
Susan Collins
R · ME
$425,613
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 12/67VOTED YES
Gary Peters
D · MI
$393,195
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 13/67VOTED YES
Richard Shelby
R · AL
$367,750
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 14/67VOTED YES
Roy Blunt
R · MO
$363,205
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 15/67VOTED YES
Thom Tillis
R · NC
$335,753
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 16/67VOTED YES
Dan Sullivan
R · AK
$322,773
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 17/67VOTED YES
Lindsey Graham
R · SC
$300,924
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 18/67VOTED YES
John Thune
R · SD
$298,332
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 19/67VOTED YES
Timothy Kaine
D · VA
$290,482
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 20/67VOTED YES
Steve Daines
R · MT
$287,124
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 21/67VOTED YES
Ted Cruz
R · TX
$276,531
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 22/67VOTED YES
Bill Cassidy
R · LA
$272,812
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 23/67VOTED YES
Debbie Stabenow
D · MI
$266,858
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 24/67VOTED YES
Michael Crapo
R · ID
$241,150
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 25/67VOTED YES
Claire McCaskill
D · MO
$223,077
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 26/67VOTED YES
Shelley Capito
R · WV
$220,822
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 27/67VOTED YES
Todd Young
R · IN
$220,750
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 28/67VOTED YES
Orrin Hatch
R · UT
$218,200
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 29/67VOTED YES
Heidi Heitkamp
D · ND
$217,975
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 30/67VOTED YES
John Barrasso
R · WY
$202,280
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 31/67VOTED YES
Christopher Coons
D · DE
$194,382
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 32/67VOTED YES
Thomas Carper
D · DE
$188,518
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 33/67VOTED YES
Bill Nelson
D · FL
$186,014
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 34/67VOTED YES
Richard Burr
R · NC
$175,795
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 35/67VOTED YES
Bob Corker
R · TN
$173,130
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 36/67VOTED YES
Joe Manchin
D · WV
$152,650
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 37/67VOTED YES
Lisa Murkowski
R · AK
$152,209
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 38/67VOTED YES
Cory Gardner
R · CO
$150,805
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 39/67VOTED YES
Margaret Hassan
D · NH
$146,345
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 40/67VOTED YES
Joni Ernst
R · IA
$144,277
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 41/67VOTED YES
Charles Grassley
R · IA
$131,206
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 42/67VOTED YES
Dean Heller
R · NV
$125,726
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 43/67VOTED YES
Roger Wicker
R · MS
$108,960
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 44/67VOTED YES
Mike Rounds
R · SD
$108,141
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 45/67VOTED YES
Pat Roberts
R · KS
$104,350
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 46/67VOTED YES
John Boozman
R · AR
$103,517
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 47/67VOTED YES
Joe Donnelly
D · IN
$94,005
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 48/67VOTED YES
Ron Johnson
R · WI
$93,625
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 49/67VOTED YES
Jeanne Shaheen
D · NH
$92,555
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 50/67VOTED YES
James Lankford
R · OK
$91,581
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 51/67VOTED YES
Jeff Flake
R · AZ
$86,383
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 52/67VOTED YES
Doug Jones
D · AL
$84,359
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 53/67VOTED YES
Mike Lee
R · UT
$82,869
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 54/67VOTED YES
John Kennedy
R · LA
$80,440
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 55/67VOTED YES
Deb Fischer
R · NE
$76,421
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 56/67VOTED YES
Jerry Moran
R · KS
$67,050
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 57/67VOTED YES
Rand Paul
R · KY
$60,628
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 58/67VOTED YES
Benjamin Sasse
R · NE
$55,636
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 59/67VOTED YES
John Hoeven
R · ND
$50,816
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 60/67VOTED YES
James Risch
R · ID
$48,941
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 61/67VOTED YES
John Isakson
R · GA
$48,200
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 62/67VOTED YES
Angus King
I · ME
$47,150
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 63/67VOTED YES
James Inhofe
R · OK
$45,950
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 64/67VOTED YES
Lamar Alexander
R · TN
$35,733
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 65/67VOTED YES
Thad Cochran
R · MS
$35,100
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 66/67VOTED YES
Michael Enzi
R · WY
$32,550
from the 12 biggest banks
No. 67/67VOTED YES
Mark Warner
D · VA
$11,480
from the 12 biggest banks

The Not-For-Sale Set

The ones they couldn't buy.

We ran the same receipts test on the senators who voted no. Most still took serious sector money — voting no doesn't make you clean. But 5 sitting senators took less than $150,000 from the 7 worst sectors across their entire careers — McConnell took 21× more from Wall Street alone. They get the rare cards.

★ NOT FOR SALE ★HELD THE LINE · 2018★★$S.2155
No. 01/5VOTED NO
Bernie Sanders
I · VT
$98,254
7 worst sectors · entire career
No. 02/5VOTED NO
Tina Smith
D · MN
$100,516
7 worst sectors · entire career
No. 03/5VOTED NO
Jeff Merkley
D · OR
$110,362
7 worst sectors · entire career
No. 04/5VOTED NO
Mazie Hirono
D · HI
$123,335
7 worst sectors · entire career
No. 05/5VOTED NO
Chris Van Hollen
D · MD
$147,538
7 worst sectors · entire career
EMERITUSVOTED NO
Tom Udall
D · NM · retired
$95,222
7 worst sectors · entire career

What it cost you

Five years later, the banks they freed started failing.

S.2155 raised the line for tough bank oversight from $50 billion to $250 billion in assets — freeing dozens of banks from the stress tests built after the 2008 crash to catch exactly this kind of risk.

One of them was Silicon Valley Bank. Because it sat under the new $250B line, it skated past the tougher testing. In March 2023 it collapsed — the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history — followed within days by Signature Bank, and soon after by First Republic.

This isn't a partisan read. The Federal Reserve's own post-mortem tied the supervisory gaps directly to the 2018 rollback. To stop a wider panic, the government stepped in and backstopped every deposit — a public rescue of the system the deregulation helped break.

The senators who freed the banks kept their seats. You kept the bill.

Sources: Federal Reserve, Review of the Supervision and Regulation of SVB (Barr Report, 2023); Roosevelt Institute; NBC News.

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Make them hear you

Money: FEC itemized contributions (career) from the 12 largest banking & securities employers + key industry PACs — a conservative floor; the full industry total is higher. Vote: U.S. Senate Roll Call 115-2-54, March 14, 2018. Non-partisan: this is about money and votes, not party.