Campaign Finance/Fair Elections
Roll Call: Record Spending in 2012 Elections Could Spur Rules Changes, Experts Say
The National Press Club held an event yesterday day featuring some top names in the reform community: Trevor Potter, Fred Wertheimer, Sheila Krumholz, and Jonathan Salant. A choice quote from Potter: “It’s not a bad place to start when both sides don’t like the status quo.”
 
Roll Call: Lobbyists Could See More Curbs Arising From Campaign Finance Movement
“Spearheaded by a coalition of campaign finance experts and activists called Represent.Us, the campaign is working to build grass-roots support for a measure that would drastically limit lobbyist fundraising, among other provisions.”
 
Washington Examiner: Why lobbyists dislike Citizens United
Tim Carney argues that K Street lobbyists are big losers from super PACs ability to spend freely on lobbying and that this is the motivation behind the DISCLOSE Act.

Congress/2012
Center for Media and Democracy: Where Did All those Super PAC Dollars Go? 1/3 of All Outside Money Moved Through Handful of Media Firms
“CMD (publishers of PRwatch.org) estimates that more than $482 million in outside spending, about a third overall, ultimately passed through just six media companies: ad production shops Mentzer Media and McCarthy Hennings Media, direct mail giant Arena Communications, online advertising firm Targeted Communications, Karl Rove-affiliated Crossroads Media LLC, and a mysterious Democrat-aligned media group called Waterfront Strategies.”
 
AP: Tea Party Group Chief Quits, Cites Internal Split
More about the split between FreedomWorks and former Representative Dick Armey, which apparently involves $8 million in payments to Armey, paid for by an outside funder. More from Roll Call and the Washington Post.  
 
The Guardian: Obamacare architect leaves White House for pharmaceutical industry job
Harsh words from Glenn Greenwald about the revolving door move of the Affordable Care Act's primary drafter to the industry that benefited most from the legislation: “It's difficult to find someone who embodies the sleazy, anti-democratic, corporatist revolving door that greases Washington as shamelessly and purely as Liz Fowler”
 
Slate: The Continuing Super PAC Disaster
David Weigel reports on the ongoing fury on the right about the perceived misuse of the unlimited money raised by conservative super PACs.
 
FEC says Angle violated campaign reporting laws
Unclear if there will be any penalties: “The FEC accepted the findings of auditors that Angle's campaign failed to file or report in a timely manner 169 contributions totaling $243,750, or property account for debt.”
 
Sunlight Reporting Group: Post-election super PAC filings trickling in
“Super PACs have until Thursday to submit their final 2012 election reports to the Federal Election Commission but some have filed early, disclosing for the first time who funded advertisements that flooded the airwaves in the final weeks before the election.”


Other/States
Albany Times-Union: Leveling fields for the little guy
The Rockefeller Institute held a panel on campaign finance reform in New York state with several experts: “Reform supporters ran through an oft-repeated list of reasons to support such changes, including the current dominance of big-money donors. Malbin's report noted that people giving up to $250 gave less than 8 percent of contributions this year; those giving $1,000 or more made up 19 percent.”
 
New Yorker: Why Americans Can’t Vote
Jeffrey Toobin: “Unless and until the federal government takes over the business of running our elections—which will, in all likelihood, never happen—the process of voting will remain the shambles we saw on November 6, 2012.”