by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) blog

The Center for Media and Democracy is re-posting this article from the CREW blog as part of our efforts to expose the influence of corporate money in politics. Eric Cantor [3] is also an alumnus of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC [4]), which the Center has been investigating through ALECexposed [5], and he has introduced federal legislation that parallels the ALEC agenda. CMD is also helping to raise awareness of alternatives to the Cantor/ALEC agenda to starve government and slash government services, namely how a tiny tax on Wall Street [6] could help. Cantor's efforts to smear Occupy Wall Street protesters and his receipts from Wall Street firms are documented below.

The original article about Cantor's Wall Street investors can be found here. [7]

Why has Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) been "increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street [8]," while defending the Tea Party protests as an "organic movement [9]?" It’s all about the money.

Rep. Cantor’s campaign committee and leadership PAC have been bankrolled by Wall Street since he was elected in 2000. The financial industry has been his largest contributor [10], increasing donations to the congressman by 1,326% between the 2002 and 2010 election cycles.

So while Rep. Cantor may believe the Occupy Wall Street movement is "the pitting of Americans against Americans [11]," the reality is the movement is pitting Americans against his campaign contributors.

Then, of course, there is Rep. Cantor’s wife, Diana, a fixture on Wall Street. Ms. Cantor served [12] as a VP at Goldman Sachs, a Managing Director at New York Private Bank & Trust, and currently is a partner at Alternative Investment Management, LLC [13] – a firm that "invests [14] mainly in hedge funds and private equity funds."

According to Open Secrets:

• Thus far in the 2012 election cycle, Rep. Cantor is the second largest recipient [15] of financial industry donations to House members.

  
  

  • In the 2010 election cycle, he was the third largest recipient [16] of Wall Street cash. In fact, ever since his election to Congress, Rep. Cantor has been in the top 16 recipients of financial industry contributions.

  
  

• Up to now in the 2012 [17] election cycle, five of Rep. Cantor’s top 10 donors to his campaign committee and leadership PAC were in the financial industry.

  
  

  • Rep. Cantor is currently the second largest [18] recipient of Securities and Investment contributions (which includes hedge funds, private equity and venture capital money).

  
  

• During the 2010 [19] election cycle, six of Rep. Cantor’s top 10 donors to his campaign committee and leadership PAC were from finance related industries.

  
  

  • During the 2010 election cycle he was the fourth largest [20] recipient of Securities and Investment contributions.