Boehner acknowledges pressing Wall St. for donations

House Minority Leader John Boehner acknowledged today that he recently pressed the CEO of JPMorgan/Chase to stop donating to Democrats and instead direct campaign donations to the GOP.

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Boehner met with Jamie Dimon at a Capitol Hill restaurant and urged him to help the GOP heading into 2010.

Boehner confirmed that anecdote this morning 

"I did in fact have a conversation with Mr. Dimon to talk abotu some of the bizarre policies coming out of this administration," Boehner told reporters today. "I also pressed them to help our team."

Boehner said he was frustrated that the finance sector had favored Democrats in the current campaign cycle.

"The issue here is that Democrats continue to get more than 2-to-1 over republicans the money that's on Wall Street," he said.

While the finance sector has donated more to Democrats, the discrepancy doesn't seem to be as large as Boehner suggested.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, firms in the "Finance/Insurance/Real Estate" category have given 58% of their donations to Democrats since 2008, compared to 42% to Republicans. If you narrow that category to "Finance/Credit Companies," the margin is 57%-43%.

Securities and investments is 67%-33%, and Commercial banks actually favor Republicans 55%-45%.