The Sunday broadcast political shows overwhelmingly ignored the omnibus spending bill's rollback of key regulations on Wall Street and campaign finance. Only ABC's This Week covered the provisions, which come at a time when the financial services industry and large donors are playing an increasingly outsized role in elections.

Congress' controversial $1.1 trillion spending bill to avoid a government shutdown took several days of debate to pass in the Senate and barely passed through the House of Representatives, due to the inclusion of provisions “easing rules on campaign finance and the banking industry,” as NPR explained. 

The deal reverses a requirement of 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform, allowing banks to “place both standard accounts and accounts that handle riskier derivative trades under the protection of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.” The provision was drafted by Citigroup bank and provides a major benefit to big banks that allows riskier trades and transfers accountability for banks' failures -- and potentially future financial crises -- onto the government and taxpayers. The bill also rolls back campaign finance regulations, dramatically increasing the limit wealthy individuals may donate to national political parties. 

This erosion of key Wall Street and campaign finance regulations was all but ignored on the broadcast Sunday political talk shows. Neither NBC's Meet The Press, CBS's Face The Nation, nor Fox Broadcasting Company's Fox News Sunday acknowledged the controversial provisions in their discussion of the spending bill, glossing over the specific rollback of regulations in favor of general discussions on inner-party divisions on the vote. Only ABC's This Week highlighted the provisions. Host Martha Raddatz explained how the bill “dramatically ease[s] restrictions on the amount of cash individuals can donate to campaigns,” while a later panel discussion emphasized the rollback of Wall Street regulations.

The shows' failure to cover the rollback of banking regulations and systematic erosion of campaign finance comes at a time when dark money, large donors, and outside spending are playing an increasingly outsized roll in elections and the financial services sector -- the very industry which drafted and stands to benefit from the Dodd-Frank reversal -- is already outspending all other industries in midterm elections.

Dark money plays a rapidly expanding role in determining which party controls each chamber of Congress -- in 2014 dark money groups spent nearly $200 million in the most competitive Senate races -- twice as much as they spent in 2012. What's more, most campaigns in 2014 were fueled by large donors. As a Demos study pointed out, just 50 individuals “accounted for more than a third of the total money raised by Super PACs” in the 2014 midterm election contribution cycle. Outside political groups independent of candidates also spent a record high of “more than $814 million to influence congressional elections.” The spending bill's increase of contribution limits opens the door for these exorbitant amounts to climb even higher.

What's more, the rollback of Wall Street regulations is contextualized by the fact that campaign contributions from the financial sector led all other sectors in the 2014 midterm election, according to the Center For Responsive Politics, with the largest contributions from the securities and investments industry (overwhelmingly favoring the Republican Party). Of the $25.1 million Wall Street contributed to 2014 midterm races in House races, more than 60 percent went to Republican candidates. 

Such failure to cover the increasing impact of big money in politics is nothing new -- broadcast media have previously glossed over the systematic erosion of campaign finance reform.