Campaign Finance/Fair Elections
HuffPost: Cynthia Bauerly, FEC Commissioner, To Resign On February 1
Maybe this will actually force President Obama to appoint commissioners to the FEC? Even before Bauerly’s resignation, five of six positions were filled by commissioners on expired terms.

Sunlight Reporting Group: Obama discloses less about inaugural donors
As compared to the transparent 2009 inauguration, in 2013, the Obama administration has now allowed corporate contributions, declined to reveal the amounts donated until 90 days after the inauguration, and only revealed the first list of donors’ names in a Friday afternoon news dump.

Roll Call: DISCLOSE Advocates Renew Fight
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) reintroduced a version of the DISCLOSE Act identical to the one from the last Congress.
 
WSJ: Battle Over Corporate Political Spending Disclosure Heats Up
The Journal covers the suit by New York State Common Retirement Fund against Qualcomm, seeking to gain disclosure of the company’s political spending history.
 

Congress/Influence
Mother Jones: Powerful Tea Party Group's Internal Docs Leak—Read Them Here
Documents obtained by Mother Jones show that 81 percent of the $41 million raised by the FreedomWorks network came in “major gifts,” fostering a dependence on wealthy individuals and undercutting its grassroots image.
 
WaPo: Obama campaign to pay $375,000 fine for omitting some donor’s names in 2008
“The fine was imposed after an audit of the campaign’s books showed that it failed to report the identities of donors who gave large checks in the weeks before the 2008 election, according to a copy of the agreement between the FEC and the president’s campaign.” More from Politico.

Politico: Outside, secret money likely to flow in 2013
The races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia are likely to see the transition of super PACs and other outside groups into state-level politics. With no contribution limits in Virginia, it will be interesting to see if campaigns still effectively outsource their negative advertising to outside spending groups.
 
Roll Call: Confessions of a Young Lobbyist on Capitol Hill
Mickey Leibner gives some interesting glimpses into the life of a lobbyist. He also offers this interesting money in politics tidbit: “If you took an anonymous poll of lobbyists of all ages, I bet the percentage that favors serious campaign finance changes would blow you away.”
 
WaPo: Microsoft, AT&T among corporate donors to inauguration
“Other corporate donors include Genentech, a biotechnology company owned by Swiss drugmaker Roche; Stream Line Circle, run by billionaire Obama backer and gay-rights activist Jon Stryker; and the Centene Corp., a Medicaid administration company and one of the major beneficiaries of the president’s signature health-care law.” More from Bloomberg.
 
Politico Influence: Stearns Lands at APCO
Today’s revolving door announcement has former Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) headed to APCO Worldwide.

Other/States
Politico: Obama facing pressure on election reform
“[T]hough Obama has almost no direct power to bring about changes — the mechanics of elections are largely determined by state and local governments — they’re frustrated that he hasn’t used his bully pulpit to force a conversation past election night.“
 
DCist: Gray’s Priorities: More Cops, Campaign Finance Reform
“Gray also said that he would seek to reintroduce a comprehensive campaign finance reform bill that he and Attorney General Irv Nathan proposed last June but that the council failed to act on. It remains unclear what fate awaits campaign finance measures before the city's legislature—a number of legislators have balked at imposing new restrictions, saying that they'd rather see more disclosure and enforcement of existing laws.”
 
Appeal-Democrat: Campaign finance disclosure needed
Thomas Elias says that Democrats in California should use their super-majority to pass the strongest transparency legislation in the country. “One thing they will do if they're as reform-minded as they claim is revive some form of an idea that failed when proposed as a ballot initiative in 2002: Require all advertisements for propositions to list the three largest donors behind those ads in type as large as the biggest anywhere else in the ad.”

Missoulian: Helena judge rules 'dark money' group violated election laws
For reference, this is the group behind the court challenge that struck down Montana’s Copper Kings-era ban on corporate political spending: “District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena, citing American Tradition Partnership’s continued failure to produce records requested by the state and the court, adopted the state’s proposed findings that ATP acted as a political committee in 2008 and therefore must report its spending and donors.”