Since Sen. Chris Dodd's (D-Conn.) announcement on Wednesday that he will not run for re-election, many observers have noted that passing legislation to overhaul our financial system will now become easier.

This isn't because he can ignore an angry base or bad polling, but because Sen. Dodd no longer...

"The banks run the place."

That's a quote in the New York Times today from U.S. Congressman Collin Peterson, (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, explaining why he's had to change a bill before his panel to suit bank lobbyists. They want less regulation of derivative markets,...

Understandably, Americans are deeply angry about the country's current fiscal crisis. In response, many of our elected officials in Washington D.C. are pointing fingers at the executives of the failed companies. The White House forces General Motors C.E.O. Rick Wagoner to step down. The U.S. House of Representatives, in a...

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (D-Ill.) indictment this week was astonishing in the depth and breadth of the alleged personal corruption. Blagojevich treated the governor's office like a store -- selling political favors for various forms of financial gain.

But more than the personal corruption, this is also a story about...

As roughly a thousand Congressional candidates file their third quarter fundraising totals this week, their chances for victory will be handicapped by the amount of money they've brought in and have left for the final weeks leading to the November 4th election.

While political insiders are focused on the more...

Yesterday, Congress and the administration were busy hammering out details on the federal bailout of the financial industry. Industry lobbyists were also on hand, no doubt, reminding lawmakers of the $2 billion dollars in campaign contributions they've given to their campaigns over the years.

Two miles up the road,...

I brace myself each time I flip open the mailbox or log on to my personal email account -- I know what's coming. Campaign season is upon us and like a swarm of locusts the donation requests from candidates for Alderman to Congressman to President have descended on every politically...

As expected, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) announced today that he would not opt-in to the presidential partial public financing system. While his decision is regrettable, it is understandable due to the major shortcomings of the 30-year-old system and the failure of Congress to fix the badly broken system in recent...

While pundits argue whether issues in the presidential race will travel down ballot to Congressional races, new data from the Campaign Finance Institute shows that the so-called "small donor revolution" definitely has not.

While some presidential candidates have been able to harness small donors at greater levels this cycle than...

Oil and gas companies got an early Christmas present yesterday when the final energy bill passed by the Senate kept $14 billion in tax breaks in place for big oil companies. This bill was just hours after a different version failed, one that would have removed these tax breaks.

With only a handful of weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses, public attention is focused on who will be the next president. Meanwhile, as the New York Times reported on Sunday, big business lobbies are pushing the Bush Administration to weaken key consumer and environmental laws. But the...

With the wealth primary for the 2008 presidential election in full swing and millions of dollars rushing into campaign coffers, it's time to see where the candidates stand on making elections about voters and not big campaign donors.

Over at 10questions.com, we've posted a new video asking presidential candidates...

As the news continues to flow in about how much money various presidential and congressional candidates are going to report for their third quarter, keep an eye out for their claims of how much they are raising from small donors versus big donors.

Thanks to online activism through blogs, social...

The debate in Washington over competition and regulation of the telecommunications industry is hotter than ever. The major industries and trade associations are lobbying hard to protect their massive profit margins. They're holding fundraisers and throwing around money in hopes of coming out on top. Of course, there's a better...

Since Congressional turnover in January, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has positioned himself as congressional obstructionist number one protecting the pay-to-play system that keeps him in power, and his big money donors happy. So far he's been openly hostile to the effort to raise the minimum wage, held up...

While political pundits and media gadflies prefer to handicap the presidential race based on a candidate's ability to rake in the most money, a story in the New York Times yesterday went a step further in declaring that some donors aren't quite donor-ey enough.

That's because Sen. Barack...

With the battle over earmarks, transparency, and ethics and lobbying reform still brewing in the halls of Congress, the Senate Rules Committee today held a hearing on a system of campaign reform that would truly change the political process in this country.

Today, I testified to the Rules Committee that...

Today, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) are introducing the Fair Elections Now Act, legislation that would bring spending limits and full public financing to Congressional elections. It represents an historic opportunity for every elected official in Congress to say "no" to the politics of big checks and...

With corruption rampant in the 109th Congress and lawmakers' failure to pass any meaningful money-in-politics reforms, four national organizations, Public Campaign Action Fund, Common Cause, Public Citizen, and U.S. PIRG have been asking every congressional candidate to show that they care about cleaning up Washington by signing the Voters...

Every year when August rolls around, members of Congress fan out from Washington, DC to their home districts. They meet with constituents. They meet with campaign donors.

But never before have they faced Clean Elections Week.

On Monday, August 20, a coalition of reform groups including Public Campaign, Common...