More than two years after the collapse of Bear Stearns presaged the 2008 financial meltdown, the United States Senate is finally ready to begin debate on reforms to the financial regulatory structure that failed to keep the industry in check. While it may have seemed audacious at the outset of 2009, the finance, insurance and real estate sector (FIRE) has continued to pour campaign contributions into the coffers of both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. From January to December of 2009, the FIRE sector contributed a total of $17.82 million to sitting senators.

With a haul of $12.24 million, Senate Democrats pulled in nearly twice as much money from the FIRE sector as Senate Republicans. The Republicans received $5.58 million from the FIRE sector over the same period of time. All contribution data comes from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Senate Democrats beat the Republicans in the FIRE money race almost every single month. The only month that the Republicans beat the Democrats was in December, perhaps representing a change in loyalty in the run-up to the financial reform debate.

As you can see from the above graphic and the motion chart below, campaign contributions tend to spike every three months. This is due to the end of each reporting quarter for campaigns coming every three months. Campaigns often try to raise as much money as possible in the final month of a quarter.

The FIRE sector is the most prolific contributor to campaigns over the past 20 years. Since 1989, all candidates for the Senate have received a total of $431 million from the FIRE sector.

(The motion chart below shows 2009 FIRE contributions to sitting senators by month and party. I suggest setting the color to "Unique Color" and the x axis to "Time.")

More graphics below:

Contributions to the parties come from different parts of the country. Senate Democrats received vast amounts more from FIRE sector companies in New York in 2009 than their Republican counterparts. This may be largely due to both New York senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, running election campaigns.

The Republicans and Democrats are almost even in Texas. Republicans lead in the southern states, particularly Georgia. Outside of about ten states, contributions from the FIRE sector are insignificant.

You can see an animated graphic of the state-by-state distribution of FIRE contributions to the parties below:

Wonder just how Wall Street has become so influential on Capitol Hill that it can command the attention of the federal government from the President on down? The answer isn't only in how gyrations in the stock market may affect the real economy. The answer is revealed by the fact that the finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) industries that collectively are at the center of the current crisis are the single largest sector--by far--of all the major economic and interest groupings that give campaign contributions to federal politicians.

Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics have been keeping track since 1990, and their data tells a compelling story. What you see is a new way of actually picturing the role of FIRE in relation to all these other sectors, and also in terms of how money from FIRE has tilted to one political party and then the other. You can click on the chart, which was built using Google's Motion Chart tool, layered on top of a simple spreadsheet, and mouse over the colored circle to drill down on the data. First, we recommend you watch this explanatory screencast by our very own Larry Makinson.

If you would like to display the chart on your site/blog, the code can be found here.