The Huffington Post reports on an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) that shows that the upcoming 2010 elections will be the most expensive ever.

The San Francisco Chronicle details how health care industry lobbyists are funneling hoards of campaign cash to senators in charge of health care reform.

The Midwest Democracy Network has a question for the 2008 slate of presidential candidates: what will you do to strengthen our democracy? They've sent a questionnaire, which you can read here, to the candidates asking for their positions on issues like public financing of presidential and congressional races, to voter registration, to what should be done about the "revolving door" between Congress and the lobby sector.

This past Friday, former Senator and current presidential candidate John Edwards called for public financing of all elections during an interview on Real Time With Bill Maher. You can watch a clip of the interview after the jump.

The Center for Responsive Politics has released its estimates on the cost of campaigns for the 2006 elections. Overall, the big spenders were the big winners - among the decided House races the high spender was the winner 398 of 425 times. Among decided Senate races, it was 22 out of 32.

With at least 20 Voters First Pledge signers coming in as freshman members of Congress, joining 73 incumbent signers and another 14 incumbents on the record in support of Clean Elections-style public financing of campaigns (and this with several races yet undecided) we are seeing a strong voter mandate for cleaning up Congress. What do you think about the election results?