Close to four months after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling to roll back restrictions on corporate political spending, conservatives continue to downplay its significance.

Time is short for Congress to deal with the damage from the Supreme Court’s decision allowing corporations and unions to spend without limit in attacking or boosting candidates for federal office.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Election Commission has repeatedly admonished incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter for failing to adequately include the occupation and employer information for campaign contributors.

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the US Supreme Court has presented the United States with an astonishing future -- one of unlimited spending on campaigns by corporations. No developed country has faced this possibility -- it is really uncharted waters, even for a political system as openly corrupt as the current one. We are facing the possibility of a true failed state, which can lose any semblance of ethics or democratic responsiveness to the public interest or good government.

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Montandon calls a Nevada Democratic Party complaint leveled against him and U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian baseless.

The Nevada Democratic Party has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging violations of federal spending and reporting rules by Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Montandon and U.S. Senate candidate Danny Tarkanian.

The mining industry, which finds itself under renewed scrutiny this week after dozens of fatalities at a West Virginia coal mine, wields major political clout in Washington thanks to hefty campaign contributions to GOP lawmakers and expensive lobbying efforts aimed at blunting the impact of environment- and safety-related legislation.

Rick Hasen has an interesting column at Slate, discussing efforts to chip away at campaign finance regulations. Hasen suggests it will only get worse. "Opponents of reasonable regulation have a new target: trying to keep the flow of campaign money secret." For example, Citizens United submitted an advisory opinion request to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), asking if it qualifies for the "media exemption" under the Federal Campaign Finance Act. If the group does qualify, they would not be subject to disclosure requirements. Seemingly, Citizens United is seeking a way around the Supreme Court ruling that they have to report their donors, expenditures and other campaign related financial information. Read full story >

The Republican National Committee announced yesterday it recorded a new milestone in fundraising last month, but questions about RNC Chairman Michael Steele's leadership are still plaguing the organization.

Could Karl Rove's new 527 avoid campaign-finance disclosure requirements?

If you thought things have gotten bad with campaign financing since the Supreme Court turned on the corporate money spigot in the Citizens United case, you ain't seen nothing yet. Opponents of reasonable regulation have a new target: trying to keep the flow of campaign money secret. We may soon be going retro, back to the pre-Watergate era of secret campaign cash.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson made several bookkeeping errors when reporting his 2008 campaign budget to federal authorities, according to an audit released today (available here).

WASHINGTON -- As Senator John Ensign's affair was ripping apart his staff and damaging two marriages, Doug Hampton began a plan.

Later called "this gift card deal," in late April of 2008, Hampton shared his plan for prepaid gift card donations for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. This was at the same time Hampton was leaving Ensign's office months after the senator admitted privately to an affair with Hampton's wife, Cindy.

In late February, an obscure real estate company in Jacksonville, Texas, placed ads in two newspapers calling on local Republicans not to support the incumbent state representative in the GOP primary.

Illinois is home to the nation's costliest judicial election ever: the 2004 contest between Lloyd Karmeier and Gordon Maag. The two candidates in Illinois's fifth judicial district together raised almost $9.4 million, nearly double the previous national record. It topped the money raised in 18 of 34 U.S. Senate races decided that year. Even Karmeier, the winner of the race, described the money poured into the campaign as "obscene."

RNC v. FEC Could Open The Door To Even More Campaign Spending

Even as Republican Party officials struggle to quell the uproar over their questionable spending, they are pressing ahead with a bid to win access to vast new sources of unregulated money.

So far, lower courts have rebuffed the GOP effort. A three-judge district court panel last month threw out a Republican legal challenge to the McCain-Feingold law's ban on soft (unregulated) money.

Spartanburg prosecutor and congressional candidate Trey Gowdy wants rival U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis of Greenville to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of a State Ethics Commission investigation into Gowdy’s campaign finances that found no wrongdoing.

Fresh off a landmark victory in the U.S. Supreme Court, the conservative advocacy group Citizens United is trying to get around one part of the ruling it didn't like.

The group's attorney, former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, sent a letter to the Federal Election Commission on Monday arguing that Citizens United should not be subject to campaign-finance disclosure requirements because it is actually a "press entity" that produces and distributes documentary films.

Corporations may now spend unlimited sums to influence elections in Massachusetts, a result of a US Supreme Court ruling in January that struck down limits on corporate spending in federal elections on the constitutional grounds that it restricted free speech.

[Read Part I of this series.]

Caroline Hunter’s confirmation to the Election Assistance Commission in February 2007 came near the end of the agency’s controversial handling of two internally contentious commissioned studies -- one on voter fraud and the other on voter identification laws. Pressure to fill the four-member bipartisan commission was high: the election season was heating up.

Judge found sworn testimony 'belied' the facts

Caroline Hunter, a Bush-appointed Federal Election Commissioner who remains in office, provided misleading statements under oath in an effort to conceal Republican National Committee involvement in vote suppression activities during the 2004 presidential election, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Until Friday, it was widely held to be illegal for a federal political action committee to accept contributions in excess of $5,000. That's when a federal court ruled in SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission that individuals may contribute unlimited sums to committees whose sole function is making independent political expenditures.

Washington -- The Republican National Committee spent tens of thousands of dollars last month on luxury jets, posh hotels and other high-flying expenses, according to new Federal Election Commission filings, including nearly $2,000 for "meals" at Voyeur West Hollywood, a nightclub featuring topless dancers simulating lesbian sex.

The RNC spent more than $17,000 on private jet travel in February as well as nearly $13,000 for limousines, according to the documents.

This is too good to be true. It now appears as though the Republican National Committee authorized spending of almost $2,000 for an establishment that featured bondage. Of course, there are endless permutations for Democrats to suggest what this latest episode tells us about Republicans, but since I always take the high road, here are some key points:

KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 30 (UPI) -- A radio station in Kansas City, Mo., says it has no choice but to air racist and anti-Semitic ads from a write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate from Missouri.

WASHINGTON — The Republican National Committee on Monday opened an investigation into why party money, which donors contributed to help win seats in the midterm elections, was used to pay a $2,000 tab at a risqué Hollywood club in late January.