Public Campaign Action Fund issues a press release today praising the selection of former California Treasurer Phil Angelides as the chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and urged Angelides and the other commissioners to investigate the role that campaign contributions from Wall Street and big banking interests played in precipitating the economic crisis.

The Baltimore Sun has an editorial today on the battle in Congress over health care reform and the role that big money will play in the outcome. The editorial cites a recently released report by Common Cause.

The Billings Gazette reports that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who as chair of the Senate Finance Committee is a key legislator in the current health care reform debate, has received huge amounts of campaign money from the health care and insurance industries.

The Public Campaign Action Fund issued a press release on Monday showing that the nine Senators who sent a letter to Pres. Obama opposing a public option for health care have received over $17 million in campaign contributions from the health care and insurance industries.

The New York Times ran a story yesterday on the re-regulation of the financial industry in Congress and how the impact of huge amounts of campaign cash poured in by the industry has affected efforts for reform.

“The banks run the place,” Rep. Peterson said. “I will tell you what the problem is — they give three times more money than the next biggest group. It’s huge the amount of money they put into politics.”

The Hill.com reports that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) is taking heat for his opposition to the Obama administration's health care reform efforts in a new ad produced by Change Congress. Sen. Nelson has close ties with the health care industry and has received millions in campaign contributions during his three Senate campaigns.

In the wake of the Senate Republicans' vote against cloture in the confirmation of Deputy Interior Secretary nominee, David J. Hayes, the Public Campaign Action Fund issued a press release detailing the campaign contributions made by Big Oil to members of the U.S. Senate.

A report on Monday from abcnews.com indicates that federal investigators raided the offices of the PMA group, one of the largest defense lobbying firms in Washington DC. The raid took place as part of an ongoing investigation into potentially improper campaign contributions.

On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on the connections between city contracts and campaign contributions. According to their analysis 53 of the top 100 donors to city officials received contracts or special consideration from city officials. These 53 interests have donated $1.3 million to city campaigns since 2005.

While all of the elected officials in the article say there is no quid pro quo, the appearance is troublesome.

There will be a lot of new faces on Capitol Hill come January and as The Hill reports this morning, their first few months will be like the first day you sign up for Facebook: friend requests galore.