National Journal: “Super PACs have made a name for themselves in federal races, where multimillion-dollar behemoths such as American Crossroads and Senate Majority PAC have become almost as important as the campaigns and party committees themselves. They’re expected to play an even larger role in next year’s Republican presidential primaries, when many of them will have far more money at their disposal than the campaigns themselves.”

“But super PACs might be poised to have the most influence in the races farthest away from the national spotlight. The largesse of a few wealthy donors can struggle to make a dent in hyper-competitive Senate and presidential races, where even tens of millions of dollars are just drops of water in the ocean. In smaller races, however, a few million or even thousands of dollars can swing the outcome. And the potential for that kind of influence could encourage their proliferation in races that usually don’t see the kind of big-time spending of their federal brethren.”

My column in The Week: Jeb Bush is destroying our laughable campaign finance laws

Matt Lewis has a must-read look at the conservative PACs seeking donations to support unlikely conservative candidates.

“This kind of pitch to Republican donors has become all too familiar… There is some evidence of similar behavior on the Democratic side, but scam PACs, as they have come to be called, disproportionately target conservatives. Perhaps this is because GOP donors tend to be older, or because their skepticism of the party establishment makes them more likely to open their wallets for outside groups.”

“They may have left Capitol Hill, but many former members of Congress retain active campaign accounts—some of them holding millions of dollars that continually stoke rumors of political comebacks,” National Journal reports.

“A few decades back, former members of Congress could take their campaign cash with them, for personal use, when they retired. That avenue has long since been closed off, but former federal candidates are still free to hoard what campaign funds they had left and use it to donate to charities, candidates, and state or national party operations.”

Rick Hasen points us to a Bloomberg BNA report:

“The Federal Election Commission has dismissed—on a deadlocked party-line vote—charges that Manwin International, a foreign company producing online pornography, violated the law by bankrolling a campaign committee opposed to a Los Angeles ballot measure requiring the use of condoms in video sex scenes. According to documents released April 23, the FEC’s three Republican commissioners voted to dismiss the case, supporting recommendations from the agency general counsel’s office. An FEC counsel’s report concluded that a broad federal ban on foreign contributions in U.S. elections didn’t apply to ballot measure elections.”

Reuters: “The bland sameness of the names means that tens of millions of Americans may not realize who funded the television advert they just watched denigrating or trumpeting a particular candidate. A few blinks, and the names all run together – just as they’re supposed to… That’s because many of these groups want to stay in the background while spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support their candidate or their cause. A group that spends most of its cash on vicious attack ads, for example, can hide behind the anodyne gloss of a name that is easily forgotten or confused.”

“The best super PAC names convey commitment to a vague ideal without using language so electrifying or catchy that it could make the name stick too long in public memory.”

First Read: “In the last presidential election four years ago, every candidate, it seemed, had a Super PAC helping to run expensive TV ads. But now we’ve entered a new Super PAC Era, where big-time donor apparently could have his or her own Super PAC.”

“Chew on this: The $31 million that the different pro-Cruz Super PACs will bring in could be FIVE times more than whatever Cruz raises by the end of June. So you’re entering a new world where the actual campaign will pay for staff and travel, and the Super PACs — controlled by different families — will pay for everything else. This is uncharted territory. “

Wonk Wire highlights a really useful chart to make sense of it all.