The Sacramento Bee offers this report, with the subhead: “Republican takes the reins of office shaken by scandal.”

See this San Jose Mercury News editorial.

See this editorial.

Jonathan Cipriani offers these thoughts on the Pew controversy. See also this FOXNews report.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer offers this report. (I’d like to see the judge’s ruling, which held that a ban on union contributions to campaigns was unconstitutional, while a corporate ban continues in effect. How does this square with McConnell v. FEC?) Yesterday, the newspaper reported Campaign-finance law repeal won’t be on ballot. Thanks to Candice Hoke for alterting me to this issue.

The Palm Beach Post offers this report. This bill does one thing I approve of and another that I disapprove of. I think state centralization and the creation of uniform rules are wonderful. They resolve all kinds of uncertainties and potential equal protection issues.The problem is that this consolidates power in the hands of a single official who is a political appointee of the governor, and likely to do the governor’s bidding. Not that the alternative in Florida is very good. On the local level, partisan officials control the process as well. The reason that the Republican-dominated Florida legislature wants this change is to put more power in the hands of a state Republican appointee over the Democratic appointees in many of Florida’s larger cities. I’ll have more to say soon about how to resolve these kinds of serious, systemic problems.

David Broder offers this Washington Post column, which begins: “SACRAMENTO — The hardest challenge in the state capital these days is to locate anyone who will defend the way California has drawn its legislative and congressional district lines in the past decade.”

A.P. offers this report.

The Sacramento Bee offers this report, which begins: “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political team is moving to take over his special election campaign after last week’s court ruling that allows politicians to raise unlimited money for ballot measure efforts at the same time they fully control them.”
Given these developments I am surprised we have heard nothing from the FPPC about whether or not they plan to appeal. If they appeal, they should try to get the case an expedited hearing (perhaps in the California Supreme Court) so that this issue can be resolved without the potential for the rules switching again in the middle of the (expected special) election season.

The New York Times offers this report.

Investors Business Daily offers this editorial.

See Ryan Sager’s column from the NY Post.

Don’t miss Derek Cressman’s blog post, “Regulate Us, Please.” It concerns the FEC’s current rulemaking on Internet election activity.

This panel will be held on March 31 in Washington D.C. Looks fascinating. I have written on this topic a fair amount (see here for my most recent thoughts) with more coming soon.