The Associated Press is reporting that federal authorities are investigating whether losing Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell (R) violated campaign finance laws by using campaign money to pay for personal expenses. This isn't the first time she's been the focus of authorities for campaign finance irregularities.

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.

"Judge Sotomayor's positions on campaign finance are squarely in the mainstream of judicial precedent and public opinion," said Nick Nyhart, executive director of Public Campaign Action Fund.

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.

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.

From the interview:

Research done by Public Campaign Action Fund's Campaign Money Watch project has revealed that though the candidates in this year's presidential race may be different than in years past, the big donors sure aren't -- at least when it comes to the migration of President Bush's best bundlers to the donor rolls of Sen. John McCain's campaign.

We all know that candidates for the Presidency and Congress alike are making the calls to the small, elite group of donors known for writing four-figure checks in election years. But other major avenues for political money are the independent 527 groups who can raise an unlimited amount of money and spend it at will, provided they follow requirements to disclose the source of that money.

No one ever accused the campaign finance reform movement of being long on sizzle and short on substance, but there's one former fundraising heavyweight who's seen the political money machine from the inside and is aiming to infuse the popular perception of dialing for dollars with a little sex appeal.

In these campaign contribution-limited times, the big-money bundlers to the presidential campaigns are worth their weight in gold (check or credit card also accepted). McCain, whose Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act helped establish current federal campaign contribution limits, is out-raising Obama on the bundler front but neither man is exactly eschewing the practice that many have called a loophole for big donor influence.