Public Campaign Action Fund released a significant report yesterday, “Cashing in on Obstruction,” showing how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has abused the filibuster and other obstructionist tactics in ways that place the needs of his big campaign donors over Kentuckians and everyday Americans. Filibusters have doubled during McConnell’s stint as minority leader compared to when Democrats were last in the minority.
 
You can read the press release or take a look at the executive summary and report. There also was a good deal of news coverage of a related press event in Louisville, Ky., held by the Kentucky AFL-CIO, Progress Kentucky, Common Cause Kentucky, and IUE-CWA Local 761.
 
Louisville Courier-Journal: Protesters Urge Sen. McConnell Support Filibuster Changes
The Hill: Report Links McConnell's Donations to Legislative Work
WHAS-11: Groups Protests Report About McConnell's Campaign Finance Contributions
CN2: Campaign Finance Group Says McConnell Has Cahsed in by Blocking Bills
AP: McConnell Called Obstructionist By Critics in Kentucky

Campaign Finance/Fair Elections
Politico: Restoring path of true democracy
N.Y. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in an op-ed: “We have issued regulations that will require such sham nonprofits to disclose the percentage of their expenditures that go to federal, state and local electioneering, including issue ads. Groups that spend at least $10,000 annually to influence state and local elections in New York will be required to file itemized schedules of expenses and contributions.” He also expounds the virtues of Fair Elections public financing systems.
 
Bloomberg BNA ($$): Verrilli Urges Supreme Court to Uphold Cap on Federal Campaign Contributions
U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli filed a motion to dismiss the suit by the RNC and GOP donor Shaun McCutcheon seeking to eliminate the federal aggregate campaign contributions limit.
 
Politico Influence: Ethics Groups Way in on Campaign Finance Proposal
I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the “way” in the title is meant as a pun. In any case, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center have offered their perspective on the Murkowski-Wyden disclosure plan, calling it “an important breakthrough.”
 
Roll Call: States Target Politically Active Nonprofits
“From California to Idaho, Montana to Maine and New York, state attorneys general and election officials are fighting in court to force big-spending tax-exempt organizations to comply with their disclosure laws.”

Congress/Influence
USA Today: Fundraising begins anew for newly elected to Congress
Before even voting on their first bill, new members of Congress are already back to the fundraising grind. The reason? “More than 40% of the 82 incoming House freshmen had more debt than leftover cash in the bank, a USA TODAY analysis of final election reports shows. ... Seven of the 12 new senators showed debts on their Dec. 6 reports to the Federal Election Commission.”
 
Politico: Chris Christie hits $2M fundraising target
“New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s re-election effort brought in $2.1 million in just under five weeks, his campaign officials said today — hitting a goal his major donors circulated before the holidays. The target, first reported by POLITICO, was met without holding a fundraising event — a tough task given New Jersey’s strict campaign finance limits.“
 
Center for Responsive Politics: The New 113^th Congress
CRP has a compilation of money and influence profiles for all the new members of Congress who were just sworn in.
 
Sunlight Reporting Group: House rules package has new ethics clauses, strange wrinkles
A look at what is and isn’t in the new House rules for ethics reformers.
 
Washington Examiner: How corporate tax credits got in the 'cliff' deal
Tim Carney reports: “The "fiscal cliff" legislation passed this week included $76 billion in special-interest tax credits for the likes of General Electric, Hollywood and even Captain Morgan. But these subsidies weren't the fruit of eleventh-hour lobbying conducted on the cliff's edge -- they were crafted back in August in a Senate committee, and they sat dormant until the White House reportedly insisted on them this week.”
 
Crain’s Chicago Business: Feds urged to probe cancer clinic exec's role with Super PAC
“Two campaign finance watchdog organizations [Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21] called for a federal investigation of reports that link Richard Stephenson, founder and chairman of Schaumburg-based Cancer Treatment Centers of America, to an allegedly illegal scheme to fund a leading tea party political group.“
 
AP: NY comptroller sues Qualcomm on political spending
N.Y. Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli sued Qalcomm Inc. on behalf of New York’s pension fund seeking disclosure of its political spending. More from Thomson Reuters.

Other/States
Star Tribune: Rep. Gottwalt takes a lobbying job
We’ve all heard of the revolving door, but this Minnesota state rep is raising the bar by working at a lobbying job WHILE staying in office. “State Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, has taken a job as director of state legislative policy for the Center for Diagnostic Imaging, a company that lobbies the Minnesota legislature. … [He] will remain in the Legislature.”
 
Roll Call: Reid Has 51 Votes to Change Filibuster, Advocates Say
Sens. Merkley (D-Ore.) and Udall (D-N.M.), fresh off introducing their resolution to reform Senate rules, say they have 51 votes lined up to institute a  “talking filibuster” via the constitutional option, a bare minimum to pass.