Stanford law professor and noted copyright law expert Lawrence Lessig launched his new venture today, Change-Congress.org, designed to track the position of members of Congress on key reform issues, and put them on the record in support of things like the Fair Elections Now Act, which would publicly finance congressional campaigns. Read more about his project here.

The push to eliminate earmark spending for a one year period failed spectacularly in the Senate yesterday, despite support from unlikely corners. Indeed stories of bribed legislators and Bridges to Nowhere weren't enough to dissuade Senators from the pork barrel spending that's the bread and butter of reelection. While the impetus behind the proposed moratorium was a good one, it's going at the problem the wrong way.

Joel Bleifuss, editor of In These Times writes on the need for reform in Congress that takes on the fundamental link between campaign contributions and legislation: full public financing, in the Clean Elections model, for congressional elections.

Among the reforms being considered by the Democratic leaders of the incoming 110th Congress is an independent ethics oversight panel, an apparent acknowledgement that Congress is no longer able to police itself. Yet, despite this interest in investigating new ethical breaches no major overhaul is being considered that would mitigate existing conflicts of interest.

Time magazine's Massimo Calabresi speculates on the potential lobbying reforms that may come about when Democrats take control of Congress in January. Balancing campaign promises to clean up Washington against a newly favorable environment on the K Street lobbying corridor, what changes will Democrats bring?

The New York Times ran this piece on Sunday suggesting that (surprise!) the earmarking issue is a birpartisan problem - despite the legacy of Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff and others, the soon-to-be Democrat-controlled Congress seems less than enthusiastic about shutting off the pipeline of pork.