Here's a round-up of Public Campaign and Public Campaign Action Fund's work for the week of July 25-July 29, 2011.

This record won't last long. Today Open Secrets unveiled their "Big Picture" analysis of spending in the 2010 election cycle and it revealed what most expected--historic amounts of money were spent.

From Open Secrets: "It was the most expensive midterm election in history. Spending by outside groups spiked in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."

Jessica Wehrman of the Dayton Daily News looks in to what elected officials in Ohio are financing out of their campaign accounts -- Attorney General Marc Dann in particular -- in this article that includes commentary from our Executive Director, Nick Nyhart.

It's tricky to know where to draw the line on what an ethical campaign expenditure is, but Dann seems to have tread much closer to the line than other officials:

We pay a lot of attention to how candidates bring money in for their campaign accounts -- but what about how it gets spent? The Houston Chronicle looks at the expenditures of Texas candidates after the election -- how they're using campaign cash to travel in style, eat like kings, and win brownie points via donations to local groups. Ah, campaign cash - the gift that keeps on giving.