Campaign Finance/Fair Elections
Did ethics staff taint Waters probe?
Must read on the House Ethics Committee: "The former staff director of the House Ethics Committee accused two top committee lawyers last year of secretly communicating with Republicans on the panel regarding the investigations of Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), raising concerns over whether the long-running inquiries were compromised by key staffers, according to internal committee documents obtained by POLITICO."

Fate of Montana's century-old political spending law rests with high court
"A battle in the Montana Supreme Court over a century-old ban on corporate political spending could determine the fate of some third-party attack ads in the 2012 elections."

Congress/2012
Several presidential campaigns rev small-dollar donor engines, while others sputter
CRP ran the presidential numbers over the weekend. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Hermann Cain, Newt Gingrich, etc are all raising small dollar donations at a decent clip but can't compare to Michele Bachmann. Mitt Romney's base, though, is not a grassroots one.
- And more from the Post on 2012 spending: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2012-presidential-race-expense-reports-give-peak-at-candidates-priorities-styles/2011/07/17/gIQAjW9hKI_story.html?hpid=z2
- And some awesome graphics on the money from the Times: http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance?hp&ref=politics

Obama campaign releases bundler list
A good chunk of President Obama's second-quarter numbers came from bundler fundraising.
- More from the Times on Obama's fundraising: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/us/politics/17donate.html.

Obama to nominate Richard Cordray for consumer agency, bypassing Warren
Well, we didn't get Elizabeth Warren, but this guy's pretty good too. And, will this give Warren the space she needs to run for Senate against Scott Brown?

Rob Collins, Jim Jordan join Purple Strategies
What's interesting here, I think, is that the guy who ran American Action Network will now be a Washington lobbyist. Will he be lobbying any of the members that his $30 million in secret money helped to get elected? Norm Coleman, who was the CEO of the group in the last cycle, is already back lobbying.

Top GOP donors stay on sidelines
Interesting: "Only about one in five of the elite GOP fundraisers who fueled John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid have donated to the Republicans vying to oust President Obama, a USA TODAY analysis of new campaign-finance reports shows."

PACs might not always help
Mitt Romney has a lot of PACs being set up in his honor, but "The presence of multiple pro-Romney PACs, not all in harmony, underscores the unpredictable role such PACs may play in 2012. Candidates have no control over the messages of PACs that by law must operate independently, election lawyers note, and in some cases such outside efforts can hurt candidates more than help."

News and its critics
Wherein the Wall Street Journal editorial board places its fingers firmly in its ears and yells, "Nuh uh!" about the growing News Corp scandal.
- And Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) wants Congress to investigate: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/171895-durbin-calls-for-congress-to-investigate-murdoch.

Rep. Jared Polis a champ at raising funds for Democrats
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) says raising money is important--if they want to get back in power, Dems need to raise more money. Craig Holman: "What he's really saying is money is power. In a democratic system when we have members easily admitting that money is power, it seems to undermine the purpose of democracy. Money buys access and money buys power in our democratic system."

Who pays the bill while Perry travels around the country to spread his message?
Over the weekend, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he was feeling "the call" to run for president and the NYT looked at who is paying for all that travel he's doing trying to build support.

O'Donnell takes aim at political watchdog group
It seems that failed Delaware Sen. candidate Christine O'Donnell is going to start going after CREW.

Other
Arizona recall election for Sen. Russell Pearce: a primer
All you wanted to know about the recall election that SB 1070 architect and Clean Elections foe State Senator Russell Pearce is now facing in Arizona

Will Gov. Nikki Haley personally drive South Carolina's 178,000 disenfranchised voters to the DMV?
When asked about the people disenfranchised by South Carolina's new voter ID law, Gov. Nikki Haley said she'd drive those people to get an ID. That would, as ThinkProgress calculated, take 7 years and 4 months for her to get each one.