Campaign Finance/Fair Elections Reform groups urge Senators to oppose McConnell bill A group of reform organizations sent a letter to the Senate yesterday urging them to reject Sen. Mitch McConnell’s presidential financing repeal bill. Reform campaign finance This editorial from North Carolina calls for redistricting reform and Fair Elections. Campaign finance reform Great editorial in Buffalo calling for Fair Elections for New York. “There’s little hope of changing how the state spends taxpayers’ money until we change how politicians get theirs.” Congress Alternatives to mandating insurance? Maybe According to this NPR report, there has been $100 million in ads run against health care reform since it passed Congress. Lawmakers’ end of earmarks affects local programs large and small “Across the country, local governments, nonprofit groups and scores of farmers, to name but a few, are waking up to the fact that when Congress stamped out earmarks last week, it was  talking about their projects, too.” Everyone has a rule they hate Rep. Darryl Issa (R-Calif.) finally released his list of rules that business groups want to get rid of. The list, released on his website, was about 1900 pages and totally unsearchable. FEC questions Bachmann donations It looks like Rep. Michele Bachman’s campaign might be having trouble following the rules for filing campaign finance reports. GOP 2010 joint committee got large checks The House GOP pulled together a joint fundraising committee right before the election. The result? “Not since the 2002 ban on soft money have so few outside donors given so much money to a candidate-based fund.” Other Ethics bills pass Arkansas House Senate The Arkansas legislature passed an ethics reform bill, that places “a one-year ‘cooling off’ period on former legislators before they can become lobbyists and also cuts travel expenses for lawmakers.” Common Cause files ethics complaint over House speaker’s European trip Common Cause Georgia filed an ethics complaint on Monday regarding the Georgia House Speaker’s recent European trip paid for by a lobbyist.