Campaign Finance/Fair Elections
Bills would weaken--or eliminate--Maine's Clean Elections Act 
Gov. LePage may have dropped his plans to defund Clean Elections in the budget, but that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet.

Did Steny Hoyer really say that?
Common Cause President Bob Edgar has this piece on The Huffington Post about Rep. Steny Hoyer's (D-Md.) comments on the draft disclosure executive order. "I thought that was the real Steny Hoyer, a principled while pragmatic, get-things-done congressman. The guy we heard from on Tuesday was something else altogether."
- Editorial from the Providence Journal: http://www.projo.com/opinion/editorials/content/ED_contractors12_05-12-11_UMO0VHK_v9.3720c1d.html
- Op-ed from Tina Dupuy: http://www.dailydemocrat.com/guestopinions/ci_18048014

More than 40 percent of Hill staffers say lobbyists wield more power because of Citizens United
From Public Citizen: "An informal survey of congressional staffers suggests that the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has left significant numbers of congressional staffers fearing retaliation against their bosses if they act in ways that displease lobbyists."

Lawsuit revives fear of foreign cash
Ken Vogel provides an update on the lawsuit trying to overturn the ban on foreign nationals donating to political candidates--a special panel of federal district court judges will hear the case today.

Congress/2012
The demand for campaign cash
Public Campaign President Nick Nyhart responds to Rep. Jim Cooper's essay on "fixing Congress." He writes, "The demand for campaign cash increases our elected officials’ dependence on a relative handful of sources for big checks, siphons time away from careful legislating, and leaves out the most important people of all, ostensibly, in a democracy: the voters."

Contractor connections
With Chairmen Issa and Graves holding a hearing today on contractor disclosure, here's a rundown of some of the big government contractors funding their campaigns.

Stephen Colbert files FEC request for Colbert PAC
"Comedian Stephen Colbert on Wednesday night went straight to the Federal Election Commission to ask for an exemption for his new political action committee he said aims to be "a force in the 2012 election."

AT&T and T-Mobile chiefs field skeptical questions on Capitol Hill
Article on yesterday's hearing on the ATT/T-Mobile merger hearing.

Burr appointment snub to DeMint
Wow, in a surprise move, the leading sponsor of repealing Wall Street reform did NOT get a seat on the Senate finance committee.

League of Women Voters defends tough new ads
Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and the Mass GOP have gone on the attack against the League of Women Voters for their ad criticizing him for voting to gut the Clean Air Act, but they have no regrets. "We chose this time to use a bigger megaphone because the terms of the debate need to be changed"

Haley Barbour's exit frees up 2012 cash
Barbour's decision not to run in 2012 freed up some campaign money for other candidates.

FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker to join Comcast-NBC
An FCC Commissioner that voted to approve the NBC-Comcast merger will now become a lobbyist for Comcast. It's just like Congress!

Other
From lawmaking to lobbying
This story talks about ex-lawmakers turned lobbyists at the statehouse in Nevada. Common Cause’s Mary Boyle: "If you’re eyeballing a job while you’re a legislator, and you’re casting votes on public policy issues, are you doing so in the interest of the public, or to impress a potential employer?”