‘GOVERNOR GOTTHEIMER’ WOULD BE A TOOL OF WALL STREET

Biggest funders include hedge funds, private equity firms, Big Finance

This is Part 1 of a three-part TNJD series on Josh Gottheimer. Today, we look at who’s been funding his political career. In Part 2, we’ll look at what he’s delivered for his moneyed backers. And in Part 3, to come later, we’ll examine his flawed tax cut proposals, which sound, well, like they’re taken from the GOP playbook.

Democrats looking to vote for a candidate in the upcoming gubernatorial primary who is bought and paid for by Wall Street will not have to look very hard to find the perfect pick: Josh Gottheimer. A quick look at who funds his campaigns makes that clear.

Securities and investment firms were the top contributors to Gottheimer’s 2024 congressional campaign, providing $1,998,342 for his 2024 race, according to OpenSecrets.org. Individuals connected to these firms provided the bulk of the money, and related PACs kicked in $190,800 of that total.

Among all members of Congress – all members, mind you! – Gottheimer was the top recipient of private equity and investment firm money in 2024. He was the leading recipient of money from predatory payday lenders, the number two recipient of money from finance and credit card companies and securities firms. He was the fourth largest recipient of hedge fund money.

The largest asset managers are his top individual contributors. For instance, Blackstone, which manages a staggering $1 trillion, was his leading campaign contributor last year, with individuals or PACs connected to it providing over $160,000 of his financial haul. Apollo Global Management and KKR & Co., each managing hundreds of billions of dollars, are two of his other top campaign contributors. And over the course of his congressional career, beginning in 2016, Josh4Jersey has raked in more than $7.3 million from people working at investment and securities firms.

So, what exactly do they want for all their cash? And has Gottheimer delivered for them?

On a broad level the men, and a few women, who run these companies want lower personal taxes and lower corporate taxes, both on their firms and those their private equity holdings are invested in. They want more deregulation of these companies and of Wall Street. They want their specific corporate interests, the industries and projects they invest their trillions of assets in, protected in key budget and spending bills.

Time and again Gottheimer has used his congressional savvy to foster the interests of Wall Street. So the question is if Gottheimer is elected governor will he put the interests of the state’s residents above those who have backed his political career? (No.) Will he buck Blackstone, one of the largest owners of rental houses and apartments in the country, when it comes to pressing for more affordable rents? (No.) Will he push for green energy initiatives when Blackstone and KKR have major fossil fuel investments? (No.) And when the Trump Administration presses for privatization of Social Security, something already being demanded by the private equity investors who see the money they can make from investing this pot of gold, will Gottheimer be there to protect it? (Not likely.)

A telling indication comes from late last year when congressional Democrats were pushing the Social Security 2100 Act, to increase Social Security benefits, including a 2 percent across the board increase for all Social Security recipients. To pay for it, according to its chief sponsor, Representative John Larson (D.-Conn.), the bill would ensure “that millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share by applying FICA to earnings above $400,000” and close a loophole by adding an investment tax for taxpayers earning more than $400,000. Gottheimer did not sign on, but 189 House Democrats co-sponsored the bill. (Incidentally, Gottheimer and Representative Mikie Sherill, also running for governor in 2025, were the only New Jersey Democrats who did not co-sponsor it.)

Gottheimer’s subservience to Wall Street is nothing new. From the very start of his Congressional career, and as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, he’s tried to undo the regulations overseeing Wall Street, put into place following the 2008 financial crash.

He was one of a handful of Democrats who supported the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act, which, the Consumer Federation of America warned would “paralyze the agency’s ability to protect consumers.”

In conjunction with a lobbying campaign by the CEOs of eight of the largest banks, Gottheimer organized 16 Democrats to sign on to a letter urging regulators to ease up on oversight of derivatives trading by banks.

Gottheimer backed a law, signed by Trump, which significantly reduced the number of banks subject to oversight and stress tests by regulators. Sen. Bernie Sanders and others blamed this new law for the third largest bank failure in the country’s history, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Interestingly, Gottheimer, one of the most active traders of his own stocks in Congress, sold shares of the bank the day before it collapsed, despite, said TheStreet.com, his position “on the financial services committee giving him an insider track on issues at the bank.”

And Gottheimer backed another measure, H.R. 4293, limiting the ability of the Federal Reserve Bank to determine the soundness of big banks.

As we’ll see in Part 2, tomorrow, when there’s been a conflict between the interests of his financial backers and his constituents and voters, Gottheimer has chosen his Wall Street supporters.