“The national political parties are urging wealthy backers to give them 10 times more money than was allowed in the last presidential election, taking advantage of looser restrictions to pursue ­million-dollar donors with zeal,” the Washington Post reports.

“Under the new plans, which have not been disclosed publicly, the top donation tier for the Republican National Committee has soared to $1.34 million per couple this election cycle. Democratic contributors, meanwhile, are being hit up for even more — about $1.6 million per couple — to support the party’s convention and a separate joint fundraising effort between the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign.”

“Democrats are laying the groundwork for an ambitious reorganization of their struggling network of “super PACs” that would exploit the loopholes and legal gray areas that Republicans have already used to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the 2016 campaign through such groups,” the New York Times reports.

“The plans, laid out by the party’s top election lawyers in an emergency request filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday, would pave the way for the creation of a host of new super PACs tailored to individual House and Senate candidates.”

Hillary Clinton “is rolling out a policy plan Tuesday aimed at lifting the veil on some of the wealthy donors who have bankrolled political campaigns while taking advantage of laws that allow them to remain anonymous. Mrs. Clinton, who along with her husband has been among the most prodigious fundraisers in U.S. history, is also proposing ways to give candidates more incentives to collect money from small donors,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Donald Trump “called for more transparency in campaign fundraising and attacked Jeb Bush supporters for using super PACs to raise substantial money for his presidential bid,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Said Trump: “This nonsense with PACs, and they don’t coordinate with other people? Do you really believe that doesn’t happen?”

Wall Street Journal: “Some Republican presidential candidates could be in for sticker shock… The expanding roles of super PACs and a condensed nominating calendar are fundamentally transforming the way the 2016 primary campaign will be conducted. Gone are the days when campaigns could just scrape together enough money to advertise in Iowa and New Hampshire, counting on an early victory to spur an infusion of fresh contributions.”

Wall Street Journal: “On Wednesday, the public will get its first look at the donors bankrolling 2016 candidates’ campaigns and how the campaigns are spending that money, as of the end of the second quarter. Campaigns are required to file disclosures with the Federal Election Commission providing details of their quarterly fundraising, many of them for the first time. The only candidate who launched his campaign early enough to file a first-quarter report was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who at the time was eight days into his campaign.”

“Many candidates have already released their fundraising totals and other selected figures, which starts to form a picture of who’s leading the race for each party’s nomination — in terms of money, Hillary Clinton leads Democrats, and Jeb Bush leads Republicans. But many other details haven’t been disclosed.”

Politico: “Concerns are mounting among top donors and party elites that an influx of huge checks into the GOP primary will hurt the party’s chances of retaking the White House. Long-shot candidates propped up by super PACs and other big-money groups will be able to linger for months throwing damaging barbs at establishment favorites who offer a better chance of victory, the thinking goes. Already, big-money groups have raised about $86 million to support a handful of second- and third-tier candidates.”

New York Times: “In previous election cycles, super PACs — which can raise unlimited donations from corporations and individuals alike — largely channeled money from wealthy donors into political advertising. But now they are branching out into what had seemed a fundamental function of a campaign committee: organizing voters one at a time.”

“The practice of having super PACS, which can be entirely financed by a single billionaire, take over such operations allows campaigns, which may raise only $2,700 from any one donor, to outsource the costly, labor-intensive work of recruiting activists and building lists of supporters. It could also allow second-tier candidates to be more competitive, prolonging the nominating process.”

“As presidential candidates find new ways to exploit secret donations from tax-exempt groups, hobbled regulators at the Internal Revenue Service appear certain to delay trying to curb widespread abuses at nonprofits until after the 2016 election,” the New York Times reports.

“In a shift from past elections, at least eight Republican presidential candidates, including leading contenders like Jeb Bush and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, have aligned with nonprofit groups set up to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s supporters are considering a similar tactic.”

A new new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that Americans express far more alarm about the influence of money in politics than the fact that another Bush and Clinton are running for the White House.

“Asked to rank their top concerns about the upcoming presidential election, one-third of Americans pointed to the sway that companies and wealthy individuals may have over the outcome, more than for any of five other issues tested.”

“White House hopefuls raking in record amounts of money in the 2016 presidential race are already being accused by watchdog groups of breaking campaign fundraising laws. But the Department of Justice is unlikely to prosecute possible violations and halt the funding free-for-all, say current and former department officials,” Reuters reports.

“With deadlock in the campaign finance regulator, the Federal Election Commission, watchdog groups are calling on the Justice Department to investigate contenders such as Republican Jeb Bush, who they say is conducting a charade of ‘non candidacy’ to skirt federal election fundraising laws.”