By Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — If Harold Ford Jr. decides to run for U.S. Senate this year, he could get a major boost from his banking buddies, thanks to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court Decision removing corporate spending caps on campaigns.
The Merrill Lynch vice chairman did very well with corporate fundraising during his tenure as a Tennessee congressman, with top contributions coming from the employees and Political Action Committees of deep-pocketed organizations like Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and UBS AG, according to data on OpenSecrets.org.
Before Merrill Lynch and Bank of America — Ford's current employer — merged, a combination of worker contributions and PACs from the then independent entities put them among his top ten donors.
The top five contributors to rival Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s campaigns throughout her career were from law firms and the women's Democratic advocacy group Emily’s List.
The court’s decision does not mean that corporations will be able to funnel funds directly into a candidate’s campaign coffers, but it does mean that corporations can spend as much of their money as they want to promote candidates on their own.
Executive director of Common Cause Susan Lerner said that the Supreme Court’s decision will have a major impact on New York’s senate race.
Lerner said that she expected that Ford, “being a Blue Dog Democrat, alternating between the financial world and congress and coming out of a conservative background,” would be more friendly to big business and therefore would profit from the removal of limits on corporate election expenditures.
Both Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gillibrand released statements registering their discontent with the court's decision.
"The bottom line is, the Supreme Court has just predetermined the winners of next November's election," Schumer's statement read.
"It won't be the Republican or the Democrats and it won't be the American people; it will be Corporate America."
An aide for Ford said that the former congressman had been in meetings all day — he was in Rockland County with local Democratic leaders — and had not yet been able to review the court’s decision.
