National Journal: “Once the province of actual and aspiring congressional leaders, who used them to dish out money to win friends and forge alliances, leadership PACs are now commonplace all the way to the back benches of Capitol Hill. It’s symptomatic of the constant money chase that consumes so much of modern lawmakers’ time and energy.”

“Of the new senators elected last November, only one, Maine’s Angus King, doesn’t have one yet. Overall, 94 of the 100 current senators have created such PACs… Roughly two-thirds of House members have them, as well.”

Washington Post: “Paying one’s dues is usually seen as a good thing. But for former representative David Rivera (R-FL), doing just that might have put him on the wrong side of the law. Rivera’s most recent campaign finance filings (he’s not a candidate anymore but his old campaign still carries debt, and so he must submit reports to the Federal Election Commission) show that he used $400 in campaign money to pay for membership at the Capitol Hill Club, the private GOP enclave on Capitol Hill that functions kind of like a country club for the Republican set.”

Reid Wilson: “A decade after Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold spearheaded sweeping campaign finance reform legislation, a series of judicial and legislative setbacks have derailed any hopes its original sponsors had of curbing the influence and amount of money spent on politics.”

“Instead, the incredible explosion of money in federal elections demonstrates McCain-Feingold was a speed bump, at best, on the way to a dramatic growth curve that suggests next year’s federal elections will cost nearly $3.5 billion.”

Former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has converted his campaign committee to a federal PAC and registered it as Deep Strike PAC, Roll Call reports.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) vetoed a Republican bill “that would have required nonprofits that engage in politics to disclose their donors,” the Huffington Post reports.

The measure “would have required 501(c)4 social welfare groups that spend more than $25,000 in a calendar year on political expenditures to disclose contributions above $1,000.”

“I won’t dispute for one second the problems of a system that demands immense amount of fund-raisers by its legislators…It’s appalling, it’s disgusting, it’s wasteful and it opens the possibility of conflicts of interest and corruption. It’s unfortunately the world we live in.”

— Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), quoted by the New York Times.

The Federal Election Commission has fined former Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and his parents $54,000 for improper severance payments to Cindy Hampton, a former campaign aide who had an extramarital affair with the Nevada Republican, Politico reports.

“Doug Hampton, Cindy Hampton’s husband, was deputy chief of staff in Ensign’s Senate office at that time, as well as being the senator’s best friend. The resulting scandal, which exploded into public view in June 2009, led to a lengthy Senate Ethics Committee investigation and criminal probe by the Justice Department, and destroyed Ensign’s once-promising political career. Ensign resigned from the Senate in May 2011.”

“A loose coalition of Democratic elected officials, shareholder activists and pension funds has flooded the Securities and Exchange Commission with calls to require publicly traded corporations to disclose to shareholders all of their political donations, a move that could transform the growing world of secret campaign spending,” the New York Times reports.

Roll Call sifts through the winners and losers of the first quarter campaign finance reports.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) reported his campaign fund earned $75,637 from interest and investments during the first quarter of 2013, Political Moneyline reports.

Roll Call: “Already short one officer, the Federal Election Commission will soon have a dubious distinction: As of April 30, all five of its remaining commissioners will be serving expired terms.”

“In theory, composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, the FEC has been deadlocked for so long that, some argue, the agency could hardly grind to more of a halt. But the FEC’s growing backlog of work, protracted stalemates and failure to enforce or even explain the rules is taking a toll. At a minimum, political players are increasingly confused about how to reconcile already-complicated election laws with the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling to deregulate political spending.”

A new political action committee launched this week to support bearded candidates from across the political spectrum, The Hill reports.

Said spokesman Andy Shapero: “It’s been 125 years since our last bearded President, Benjamin Harrison, was elected. We’re hoping that with our support, bearded individuals will shrug off over a century of political irrelevance and start running for office again.”

A must-read e-book just out: Lesterland: The Corruption of Congress and How to End It by Lawrence Lessig.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune runs a fascinating profile of Peter Waldron, the man behind a pair of campaign finance inquiries that have given Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) “more bad publicity than anything lobbed her way by the political left.”

“Close Bachmann associates write Waldron off as a loose cannon and disgruntled employee. But for Waldron, a former radio evangelist, his actions are consistent with his decades long mission to spread the word of God and follow his Christian precepts.”

John Avlon notes Sarah Palin attempted to relaunch her political career this week with a new video which railed against “the big consultants, the big money men, and the big bad media.”

“But there’s an irony alert ahead: the current stated purpose of SarahPAC is to raise money ahead of the 2014 election–most of which will be spent on conservative consultants.”

“Seen through the lens of the invaluable Center for Responsive Politics, Palin’s PAC spent $5.1 million in the last election cycle (more than it raised in that time period, raising some questions about Palin’s claims of fiscal responsibility). But the real news comes when you look at how donors’ money was actually doled out: just $298,500 to candidates. The bulk of the rest of it, more than $4.8 million, went to–you guessed it–consultants.”

The Week: “To become a United States senator, you must be at least 30 years old, have nine or more years of citizenship to your name, and live in the state you wish to represent. You also need, on average, $10.5 million.”

“In general, House races were far cheaper than Senate contests, with
victorious candidates raising an average of about $1.7 million.”

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the largest Republican donor in last year’s presidential campaign, has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that his company likely violated a federal law against bribing foreign officials, the New York Times reports.

A former congressional candidate under investigation with former Rep David Rivera (R-FL) is scheduled to be charged with federal crimes over his campaign finances, sources tell the Miami Herald.

The FBI suggests Justin Lamar Sternad’s (D) campaign finance reports “could have concealed as much as $100,000 in services and mailers, some of which attacked a Democratic rival of Rivera, who is a Republican.”

“Although Rivera is a target of the investigation, his name is nowhere in the indictment of Sternad.”