A story today at talkingpointsmemo.com discusses an appellate court case concerning campaign finance law that could undermine individual limits on contributions made to candidates. The case features none other than Ken Starr, known opponent of campaign finance laws.

Public Campaign Action Fund issued a press release today praising Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, for her campaign finance record.

Marv Ott, the Republican candidate running in the Minnesota House District 3A race has joined the growing list of lawmakers who've decided the big checks that lobbyists and the like are able to write campaigns aren't worth the questions about ethics they raise.  He's swearing off money from lobbyists and special interests for his campaign.

Setting aside our tendency to disagree with nearly everything the Center for Competitive Politics says, it's hard to take their opposition to campaign finance regulation seriously when their founder, Bradley Smith, blames the McCain-Feingold law for the Rep. Mark Foley scandal. Bradley, it wasn't contribution limits Foley had trouble with it -- it was age limits.

Public Campaign Action Fund's project, Campaign Money Watch, has been doing extensive research into Senator John McCain's (R) recent reversal on the offshore oil drilling ban, and what a flood of contributions from the oil industry may have had to do with it. A couple of other organizations have picked up the thread and joined the effort to get an answer on whether campaign contributions from Big Oil are effecting McCain's policy decisions.

Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institute was a champion of the McCain-Feingold reforms, and his analysis helped get the law passed. Now, as he explains in an interview with Abby Rapoport at The American Prospect, he is leaning more towards what can be done with public financing of campaigns, both fixing the presidential system and creating a Congressional system.