The FEC might approve text message campaign contributions today. Public Campaign's Aaron Scherb has done a lot of work with the people that asked for the ruling and to get organizations and members of Congress on board in support of the measure.

Romney outraised Obama in May (his first month of having a joint fundraising committee with the RNC), great piece from Dan Eggen at WaPo on the very close ties between super PACs and the candidates they support, and Roll Call/CQ has a series on "The State of K Street."

Campaign Finance/Fair Elections
AP: Providence council approves resolution to overturn Citizens United campaign finance decision
"The Providence City Council is calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision lifting the federal ban on corporate campaign spending."

Albany Times Union: New York's real scandal
The Times Union uses the brouhaha over Cuomo's "Committee to Save New York" to push the governor to support comprehensive campaign reform - including public financing. NYT editorial.

Concord Monitor: Citizens ruling is a threat to democracy
"Citizens United, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that wrongly permits unlimited political spending by corporations and the super-rich, is a pillow that's smothering democracy" And this League of Women Voters op-ed in Florida calls for the DISCLOSE Act.

LA Times: FEC debates semantics in political ads
A run down of what happened at the FEC around the American Future Fund request over whether it has to disclose its donors. "The inaction by the FEC injects more uncertainty to the ongoing fight over the disclosure of donors to some of the biggest outside groups participating in the 2012 campaign. "

Mercury News: SEC should require full disclosure of corporate political spending
California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer has this op-ed: " A group of law professors has petitioned the SEC to adopt a rule requiring firms to disclose all political spending. I support the petition, and so do about 180,000 others who have filed comments with the SEC -- an all-time high."

Congress/2012
Washington Post: Mr. Romney's secret bundlers
Washington Post editorial page hits Romney for refusing to release his bundlers (and gives a nice shoutout to Public Campaign Action Fund): "Who are these men and women to whom the campaign is so deeply indebted? Mr. Romney has yet to answer — indeed, he has yet to be directly asked — why his campaign will not live up to the standard set by Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain. Why would he hide his roster of key supporters?" Romney will be having a day-long retreat with these folks. It makes sense we know who they are.

NYT: E-mails highlight extent of Obama's deal with industry on health care
On pharma backing ACA: "The broad contours of his dealings with the industry were known in 2009, but the newly public e-mails open a window into the compromises underlying a health care law now awaiting the judgment of the Supreme Court."

LA Times: Presidential campaigns focus on wealthy donors over swing states
With so much time spent raising money: "The net effect is that both Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney have spent a great deal of quality time in a few wealthy enclaves cloistered with the country's prosperous elite. The rest of America — states that are neither wealthy nor battlegrounds — increasingly has become flyover territory." A similar AP story looks at the impact of all this time spent fundraising.

WaPo: Obama campaign appeals for donations
"Aiming to squeeze some lemonade out of a lemon, the Obama campaign is pushing hard for donations in the wake of news that Republican challenger Mitt Romney had outraised the president's re-election effort for the first time in May."

Boston Globe: In a world of super PACs, Mitt Romney rules
Romney loves him some super PACs: "No candidate in the 2012 race adapted more swiftly and effectively to the rise of the super PACs in the wake of US Supreme Court and other rulings that effectively removed any barriers to individual and corporate donations to such so-called independent groups."

CRP: Romney spending big at top benefactor's hotel chain
The Romney campaign is spending big bucks at Marriott Hotels, a family who has given him and his super PAC big checks. USA Today.

PCAF: Renacci, Gibbs, Johnson raise cash from "at least one hundred K Streeters"
One heck of a fundraiser for three vulnerable Ohio House members last Thursday.

National Journal: Citizens United and the frailty of the rich and famous
Yup: "For years, conservative pundits and Republican lawmakers have offered 'transparency' and 'disclosure' as preferred alternatives to campaign finance limits and rules... Yet now that conservative 501(c)(4) groups are collecting tens of millions of dollars from deep-pocketed donors who insist that their names be kept secret, and using the money to launch withering attacks on Democratic candidates, the Right has changed its mind."

NYT: Room for Debate: Can a Politician Win Without Wall Street?
Don Simon, Sheila Krumholz, Brad Smith, Michael Waldman, and Marvin King weigh in on whether Wall Street money infuences policy in Washington. (Hint: Yeah, it totally does).

Dayton Daily News: Groups outside of state pumping money into Ohio
"Special interest groups from outside Ohio are pumping millions of dollars into the state, hoping to alter the course of the presidential election and other races in a spending spree that threatens to boost the influence of national organizations on the voting process in Ohio."

Journal-News: Payday lender political donations up
On CREW's payday lender report: "The payday lending industry, which has fought a fierce battle over increasing regulations around the country, has donated $1.32 million already to candidates during the 2012 election cycle including nearly $200,000 in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race." Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel actually went to the Bahamas to raise money from the industry.

Buzzfeed: Foster Friess made "very substantial" donation to Romney super PAC last month
Foster Friess is on the Romney bandwagon: "Billionaire Foster Friess, the primary backer of the pro-Rick Santorum Super PAC, says he is fully behind Mitt Romney's efforts to defeat President Barack Obama, as well as his own behemoth Super PAC, Restore Our Future."

Mother Jones: This week in dark money
What did you miss last week in dark money news? Mother Jones has you covered.

WaPo: Elizabeth arren to "Romney-Brown Republicans: We don't run this country for corporations"
Great line from Elizabeth Warren at Netroots Nation this weekend: “The Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, said, ‘Corporations are people.’ No, Mitt, corporations are not people. People have hearts. They have kids. They get jobs. They get sick, they laugh, they cry, they dance, they live and they die. Learn the difference.”

Sunlight: FEC adds RSS feed of campaign finance filings
So excited about this: "Harried campaign finance dorks who spend the 20th of each month huddled over a terminal window hoping the next 43,558-page election disclosure report doesn't break their parsing code have one less thing to worry about going wrong: today the Federal Election Commission announced they're providing an RSS feed of the latest filings."

NYT: GOP's gay trajectory
Republican hedge funder Paul Singer says he's going to launch a super PAC to give pro-marriage equality Republicans cover in case they get attacked from the right.

NYT: Ex-Ensign aide pleads guilty in scheme that snared only him
"Douglas Hampton came to the Capitol from Nevada six years ago on the coattails of his best friend, Senator John Ensign, to serve as Mr. Ensign’s senior political aide." What's Ensign up to? "Having a ball" back at his veterinary practice.

WaPo: Netroots Nation: On super PAC spending, Democratic senators come out for fighting fire with fire
Lots of talk of super PACs and big money at netroots nation over the weekend. Here's one story and one from the NYT.

The Hill: Banker, retailer fee feud is far from over
"One year after Congress opted not to delay the highly contentious 'Durbin amendment,' the banking and retail industries are still jabbing at each other on the matter, as both are eyeing the next round of the fight."

Houston Chronicle: Senate candidate Cruz pocketing big bucks from across the country
"If money talks in politics, conservative activists are shouting that the hotly contested Texas Senate runoff race between conservative insurgent Ted Cruz and Austin powerhouse David Dewhurst is the most important Republican race in the country."

Roll Call: DCCC works to make Democracts competitive
Eliza Newlin Carney looks at the DCCC: "What really keeps Israel up at night is super PACs — Republican-friendly super PACs to be exact. The DCCC is well-positioned, Israel argues, to win the 25 seats Democrats would need to retake the House in 2012. The DCCC has outraised its GOP counterpart by close to $10 million and recruited 60 Democrats ahead of schedule last year to run in GOP-held districts."

BusinessWeek: Howard Marlowe, Lobbyist Defender
BusinessWeek profiles American League of Lobbyists' Howard Marlowe