NEW YORK, NY — Even as the financial industry has sought to keep a low public profile, some of the country’s largest banks have ramped up their spending on lobbying to fight off some of the stiffest regulatory proposals pending in Congress. Lobbying expenditures jumped 12% from 2008 to $29.8 million last year among the eight banks and private equity firms that spent the most to influence legislation, according to data compiled from disclosure forms filed with Congress. The biggest spender was JPMorgan Chase & Co., whose lobbying budget rose 12% to $6.2 million, enough for the firm to have more than 30 lobbyists working for it. Among other banks, spending on lobbying rose 27% at Wells Fargo & Co. and 16% at Morgan Stanley. ‘I have never seen such a scrum of bank lobbyists as I have in the last year — and I’ve worked on quite a few bank issues over the years,’ said Ed Mierzwinski, a lobbyist for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a coalition of state consumer organizations. ‘It seems like everybody is out of work except for bank lobbyists.’ Much of the increase in spending on lobbying in 2009 came […]