A couple of interesting stories out of California over the weekend. First, late on Friday the state Senate passed a bill to create a pilot program of Clean Elections funding for candidates for Secretary of State. The bill now goes back to the state Assembly for their final approval (they passed it once already earlier in the cycle). If it passes the Assembly it goes to the Governor for his signature.

Candidates on the campaign trail may talk tough about combating special interest influence and cutting ties to lobbyists, those enemies du jour. But the real story is found on the campaign's balance sheets, where lobbyist contributions take up more than their fair share of real estate.

Election reform advocates in Illinois announced this week that at least 22 percent of the individual contributions to Gov. Rod Blagojevich were from businesses that had state contracts worth $50,000 or more. The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform reported ...

Thomas Suddes column in yesterday's Cleveland Plain Dealer is on one hand a criticism of legislative term limits, an on the other hand an examination of the price of doing business, that is giving political contributions, in Ohio: " Object No. 1 of any state legislator in Columbus is, get and stay elected, by collecting donations from Statehouse lobbies, unions and rich people."

Ah, zee dangers of merely putting limits on who can give how much to legislative candidates: loopholes loom large. The Washington Post reports on the ways lobbyist money has found around the regulations placed in its path when it comes time to fill the campaign coffers of Maryland candidates.

A group of Republican legislators in Utah are putting ethics reform at the top of their list for this year with the goal of revising the guidelines on lobbyist gifts to lawmakers, the transfer of funds from one legislator's campaign account to another, and the "personal expenses" that a lawmaker may legally cover using campaign funds. It's not a Clean Elections proposal, but it's a step towards greater transparency and accountability in the legislature.