Political Glance
Iowa Senate ethics rules prohibit a state senator from being paid as an employee by a presidential campaign. The idea is to prevent campaigns from essentially bribing legislators for their endorsements by hiring them as “consultants.”
According to an ethics complaint filed by former Bachmann staffer Peter Waldron (who also wrote a tell-all expose of the campaign, the campaign funneled money to C&M Strategies, a firm owned by Bachmann’s longtime direct-mail consultant, Guy Short, to pay Sorenson an illicit six-figure salary. This has also sparked separate federal allegations as to whether this action, if it occurred, violated federal campaign finance law as well as congressional ethics rules.
One could easily lose track of why precisely the government is shut down today and think of it as just a proxy battle in the midst of partisan trench warfare. So here's a reminder: This was a battle over whether the government ought to try to guarantee that all Americans have health insurance, as Democrats believe, or whether that's a dangerous overreach, as Republicans do.
Their kamikaze campaign to defund President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, ridiculously rests on the idea that they are reflecting “the will of the American people.”
After a public backlash to government spying, President Barack Obama called for an independent group to review the vast surveillance programs that allow the collections of phone and email records.
The Justice Department will file suit against North Carolina on Monday, charging that the Tar Heel State’s new law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls violates the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against African-Americans, according to a person familiar with the planned litigation.
