They received billions in help from the federal government to stay afloat during the worst days of the financial crisis and they've--mostly--paid it all back since. Now the top six biggest recipients of money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program--the Treasury Department program adopted in 2008 to shore up troubled banks--are contributing to the campaigns of congressional office seekers across the political spectrum.

Of the top fifteen recipients of campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, five are running for office in New York state, Wall Street's home base, and five are Republican candidates seeking election to the Senate. This is based on data collected from the Center for Responsive Politics.

These six banks were the biggest recipients of money from the bailout fund created by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Bank of America and Citigroup each received $45 billion, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo received $25 billion each and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both received $10 billion. Only Citigroup has failed to fully repay the money to the Treasury Department. Citigroup still owes $14 billion.

While the high number of contributions sent to New York pols and key individual lawmakers may be predictable, the presence of a number of Republican candidates seeking to become freshmen senators in the 112th Congress is not. Republicans have successfully used public anger against the bank bailouts to their advantage during the run-up to this fall's midterm elections.

Rob Portman, a former congressman, U.S. Trade Representative and director of the Office of Management and Budget in the George W. Bush administration running for the Senate in Ohio, is the leading recipient of big bailout bank money among GOP Senate aspirants, having raised $97,592 from the six banks.

Portman, who stated he would have voted for the bailout bill, has not run directly against the bailouts, but has taken a position that the bailout money that has been paid back to Treasury should be used to pay down the deficit.

Other GOP Senate aspirants among the top fifteen recipients of big bailout bank contributions include California's Carly Fiorina ($94,850), Illinois' Mark Kirk ($81,275), Delaware's Mike Castle ($66,000) and Missouri's Roy Blunt ($65,642).

Blunt, Castle and Kirk currently serve in the House of Representatives and all three voted in support of the bailout on October 3, 2008. They also all voted against the financial reform bill in 2010.

Fiorina, as a top advisor in the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, defended McCain's support of the bailout bill, but is now running against the bailout. In a recent debate Fiorina attacked her opponent, Sen. Barbara Boxer, for voting for the bailout and receiving campaign contributions from banking executives. The latter attack came despite the fact that Fiorina received more in contributions over the course of 2009-2010 from the six big bailout banks than Boxer.

The top recipient of contributions from the six big banks is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand with $241,000. Gillibrand is running in her first Senate election after being appointed to take the seat of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gillibrand has long relied on these big banks to provide funds for her campaigns. All of the banks, save for Bank of America, rank as top career donors to Gillibrand's campaign efforts.

The second-biggest recipient of contributions from these six banks is Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Banking, House and Urban Affairs. Over the 2010 election cycle Shelby received $127,050 from the big bailout banks.

While Shelby voted against the bailout legislation in 2008, he played an instrumental role in opposing the financial regulatory bill advocated for by President Obama, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd and House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank. Many in the financial sector, particularly the six big banks, opposed pieces of, if not the entirety of, the financial regulatory bill and worked to strip it of as many provisions as possible.

Shelby focused sharply on a provision designed to liquidate firms that were no longer solvent instead of bailing them out with Treasury funds. Shelby declared the liquidation fund to be a proposal for bailout forever and won concessions from the Democrats in the debate over the provision.

The other candidates hailing from New York state include freshman congressmen Scott Murphy ($105,050) and Mike McMahon ($103,350), senior senator and long-time Wall Street booster Chuck Schumer ($99,100) and Reshma Saujani ($88,200), the Democratic primary challenger to Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

Murphy, who won a 2009 special election to the upstate seat formerly occupied by Gillibrand, has long ties to the financial industry having worked for Bankers Trust and Advantage Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. McMahon, whose Staten Island district houses many employees in the financial sector, fought hard for the bank's positions on derivatives during the debate over the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.

Saujani is the only non-incumbent candidate for the House ranked in the top fifteen recipients of big bailout bank contributions. Earlier this year Saujani, a Wall Street banker, touted her Street cred by stating that she was, "running on my Wall Street record, not from it.” Saujani, in defending Wall Street, said, "Instead of browbeating Wall Street, I want to invite them to help create jobs."

Despite the in flux of contributions from the financial sector that have buoyed her campaign, Saujani suddenly backtracked on her statement that she would not browbeat Wall Street. In a recent debate with Maloney, Saujani attacked the congresswoman for failing to make the financial reform bill tougher and for hosting fundraisers with Wall Street lobbyists during the crafting of the reform bill.

The other four candidates ranking in the top fifteen recipients of big bailout bank contributions include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ($74,250), Connecticut congressman and former Goldman Sachs banker Jim Himes ($69,320), Senator Richard Burr ($67,680) and Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor ($66,100).

Burr, Cantor and Reid voted for the 2008 bailout. Himes was elected to Congress in 2008 after the vote had taken place. Both Reid and Himes supported the financial reform bill, while Burr and Cantor did not.

Senators selected to work to combine the House and Senate financial regulation bills in a conference committee are some of the top recipients of campaign contributions from the finance, insurance and real estate sector (FIRE). In total, these twelve senators have received over $57 million from the FIRE sector over the course of their careers, according to data obtained from Center for Responsive Politics.

Senator	Career FIRE Contributions
Schumer, Charles E (D-NY)	$16,708,236.00
Dodd, Chris (D-CT)	$14,067,712.00
Shelby, Richard C (R-AL)	$5,635,030.00
Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA)	$3,507,960.00
Corker, Bob (R-TN)	$3,188,550.00
Johnson, Tim (D-SD)	$3,150,865.00
Reed, Jack (D-RI)	$2,918,732.00
Lincoln, Blanche (D-AR)	$2,612,159.00
Harkin, Tom (D-IA)	$2,534,445.00
Crapo, Mike (R-ID)	$1,809,715.00
Gregg, Judd (R-NH)	$1,070,249.00
Leahy, Patrick (D-VT)	$637,282.00

New York's Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is the leading recipient among the Senate conferees with $16.7 million in contributions over his career. Schumer has long been an ally of the New York-based financial industry, but has been remarkably quiet as Congress has focused on reforming Wall Street. Schumer remains in support of the bill despite hometown pressure from industry friends, campaign contributors and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

His support for the financial reform bill goes against a long history of supporting deregulatory actions for Wall Street. In the late 1990s and 2000 Schumer enthusiastically supported measures that ended the Glass-Steagall separation between commercial and investment banks and the enforced deregulation of derivatives trading.

The new rules for derivatives trading included in the Senate bill remain a serious sticking point in the coming conference committee. Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., has already attempted once to eliminate a provision in the bill, penned by conference committee member Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., ($2.61 million), requiring banks to spin off their derivatives trading portofolios. Dodd is the second largest recipient of FIRE campaiagn contributions on the conference committee with $14 million for his career.

Dodd is also connected to Wall Street with seven of his former staffers currently lobbying for financial organizations. Organizations represented by Dodd's former staffers include Goldman Sachs, Genworth Financial, MBIA, National Association of Mortgage Brokers and New York Bankers Association.

One former Dodd staffer turned financial industry lobbyist runs a financial lobbying firm with the former senior advisor to Dodd's Republican counterpart on the Banking Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the third highest recipient of contributions from the FIRE sector on the conference committee ($5.63 million).

Andrew Lowenthal and Lendell Porterfield run a bipartisan lobby shop providing clients with instant access to the Senate Banking Committee and, with both of their former bosses on the financial reform conference committee, the final chance to change the sweeping regulatory bill.

Recently joining Lowenthal and Porterfield as a partner in their firm is Dwight Fettig, a former Legislative Director to Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., the sixth highest recipient of FIRE contributions appointed to the conference committee ($3.15 million). Johnson stands to become the next chairman of the Banking Committee after Dodd retires this year. The credit card industry, largely based in his state, has always counted on the support of the senior South Dakota senator.

Johnson, a career recipient of $391,400 in campaign contributions from the credit card industry, was one of ten Democrats to vote against an amendment to the financial reform bill capping “swipe fees” for debit card transactions. “Swipe fees” are charges to merchants for purchases made by customers using debit cards and often drive up retail prices for consumers. Credit card companies and banks are still lobbying hard to remove this provision from the bill. Johnson, however, is only one of four conference committees members to vote against the amendment making it unlikely the provision will be removed.

The conference committee will have to decide which portions of the House and Senate bills will be placed into a final version to be voted on and signed by the President. The House and Senate must pass bills with identical language. To do so, conference committees including members from both chambers meet to craft a compromise between the House and the Senate. The House has yet to name conferees.

The remaining members on the conference committee include Democrats Jack Reed, D-R.I., ($2.92 million), Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, ($2.53 million) and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ($637,282) and Republicans Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., ($3.51 million), Bob Corker, R-Tenn., ($3.19 million), Mike Crapo, R-Wyo. ($1.81 million) and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., ($1.07 million).

Following calls from their fellow senators, Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd and Ranking Member Richard Shelby slammed the Federal Reserve for refusing to release the names of the counterparties to the A.I.G. bailout. The counterparties are the ones who are actually receiving the majority of the bailout money.

During a committee hearing this morning on A.I.G.'s problems, Dodd stated clearly that "it is not clear who we are rescuing." The counterparties were not "innocent victims" and the public "has a right to know" who is receiving the bailout funds sent through A.I.G.

When questioned, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn refused to release the names of the counterparties because it could "make companies less likely to do business with anyone receiving government funds, risking further turmoil at AIG and in financial markets more broadly."

Dodd and Shelby both laid into Kohn, telling him his statement was "not adequate" and "very disturbing." Shelby further stated, "People want to know what you’ve done with this money."

You can watch the full committee hearing here.

UPDATE: Should also point out this moment from Sen. Jim Bunning:

“You are telling us,” he said sternly to Mr. Kohn, “that the counterparties that got par for their bonds or for whatever — the American taxpayer shouldn’t know who they are? And then you may come back to us and ask for more money for more banks and more corporations? You will get the biggest ‘no’ you ever got.”

He added that he would do everything in his power to “stop you from wasting the taxpayers’ money on a lost cause.”

A.I.G. counterparty transparency is quickly becoming a bipartisan populist issue. Who will drop a bill to force the disclosure?