There will be plenty of tributes to the anti-war candidate Gene McCarthy. Here's how the paths of McCarthy and Common Cause crossed in the 1970's.

• McCathy helped found Democratic Study Group (DSG), a group of liberal Democratics in the US House of Representatives, then dominated by conservative Southern Democrats. DSG was the center of reform in the House, working with Common Cause to open up the House and pass landmark campaign finance reform in the early 1970s.
• McCarthy joined conservatives opposing the new 1974 campaign finance law in the Supreme Court. McCarthy's campaign received key initial funding from several wealthy liberal donors. The new law placed limits on contributions -- and, McCarthy claimed, would have made his outsider campaign impossible.
• He led* an extraordinary presidential campaign based on opposition to the Vietnam War, but let that slip away and the war lasted six more years.
• Two years after that 1968 campaign, Common Cause was founded. One of its early issues was ending the war -- lobbying in Congress to cutoff funding. That effort succeeded in 1974 -- years after McCarthy's campaign and Lyndon Johnson's resignation had seemingly turned the political tide on support of the war.

* Not much of a political leader, McCarthy rambled through the campaign, his followers often becoming the actual leaders.

The Philadelphia Daily News reports, "Nearly $1 million from hidden sources is pouring into Pennsylvania to buy television ads supporting" GOP Sen. Rick Santorum. "The money is flowing through a Virginia-based organization called Americans for Job Security, a Republican-leaning, anti-tax group that says its money comes from 500 individuals, corporations, business groups and other sources. It refuses to identify any of them, or the amounts they have donated." The Daily News notes, "Several AJS leaders have been active in Republican politics." Among them is "attorney Ben Ginsberg, who resigned from the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, after he was linked to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."

Today we are mourning the passing of Paul Duke, a dedicated member of the Common Cause family who served on our national governing board for several terms. Duke was a journalists' journalist and an icon in public broadcasting. He is perhaps best known for the 20 years he served as moderator of the PBS program, "Washington Week in Review."

Mr. Duke was known for his calm demeanor and thoughtful interviewing style. He strongly valued quality journalism and was concerned about the current trends in broadcast media to position news as entertainment, and focus more on polarized commentary rather than fact based reporting.

This is what our President - Chellie Pingree had to say about Mr. Duke:The Common Cause community benefited greatly from his talent and dedication, we wish his family the best during this difficult time, and we will miss him.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor resigned today.  Here is the AP report:Hattip SCOTUSBlog.  Here is the text of her resignation letter.  Interesting that none of the  names of possible replacements are women.

Sorry for the late notice on this, but anyone channel surfing this evening should turn to CNN at 6 p.m. to watch the Lou Dobbs Tonight show, which interviewed Chellie this afternoon about Canada's decision not to sell bulk prescription drugs to the United States.

And, why is CNN inteviewing Chellie about prescription drugs?  Well, its because Chellie prior to becoming the President of Common Cause, served for eight years in the Maine Senate, with the last four years as majority leader.  In the Maine Legislature, Chellie was known for successful legislative battles regarding health care, as she authored legislation that created a landmark program known as Maine Rx, which lowered the cost of prescription drug prices for seniors. She was the winner of several awards including Consumer Health Advocate of the Year by Families, USA.

So if you are  channel surfing tonight, tune into CNN to hear what Chellie has to say about this important issue.

So we have been doing these news roundups on Mondays, but there are so many developments happenings in a number of issues we are involved in right now that, a fresh news roundup seemed necessary. First, concerning ethics, Washington Post's Mike Allen reports on how the ethics committee has completely stalled possibly holding up any investigation into DeLay allegations for months:Speaking of the Ethics Committee, we told you yesterday about how the Committee's Chairman has lobbying connections to the law firm at the center of lot of the DeLay related allegations. There is more news on that.  LA Times has a report out on connections between Hastings and supper lobbyist Jack Abramoff, which prompted the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to fire off this editorial:Of course we agree.

Meanwhile, staying with these theme on corruption, on Monday we told you about a huge political scandal breaking out in Ohio around the activities of a prominent GOP fundraiser and coin dealer (kind of like the Abramoff of Ohio). Well looks like the news got even bigger today, as the Toledo Blade printed an article today, which contradicted Governor Taft's assertion that he didn't know about the $200+ MILLION Worker's Comp Fund loss until last week:Hmmm, I wonder if this coverup concerning loss of $200 million came out in Ohio, oh let's say two weeks or even four weeks before the November 2nd election in 2004, implicating all major GOP figures, whether it would have had an impact on the results. I will let you ponder that thought.

Lastly, we have news on the CPB front, via the Washington Post:I wonder how CPB has conducted its objective search for a new President. Perhaps the CPB should reveal how it conducted this search, number of candidates it interviewed to assure folks politics did not play a part in this process. And, if you haven't signed our petition urging Chairman Tomlinson take poltics out of public broadcasting, here is the link. We already have collectied almost 50,000 online petitions asking Tomlinson to leave the Big Bird and friends alone.

Happy Monday everyone.  This is going to be a busy week here at our office as we are all getting ready for our paper trail lobby days coming up on Thursday.  As I mentioned yesterday, if you still would like to participate in it you can RSVP today.  For more information on lobby day, click here, and you can also browse through our online forum on election reform, to check out postings from a number of area supporters who have been gracious enough to offer up accomodations at their homes for activists who are looking for a place to stay.

Now on to news, lets start with the ethics problems of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).  According to this article from Washington Post's Mike Allen, they are clearly becoming a concern for the GOP members in the House of Representatives:

All these Members of Congress would do themselves a huge favor if they all came out in support of our call for outside counsel, who would ensure a thorough and proper investigation of DeLay, operating outside his domain of influence and without any conflict of interest.

Speaking of Ohio, a major political scandal has erupted in the Buckeye State, surrounding Ohio's loss in rare-coin investments controlled by Tom Noe, a prominent Toledo-area GOP fund-raiser and coin dealer, just got a lot bigger. The missing amount is now $12M, and all of Noe's property was just confiscated. Here is an overview from the Toledo Blade:The New York Times covered this story last week as well. However, it's really the Toledo Blade in the mainstream press, which has been covering the story from all angles, including how the three GOP gubernotorial candidates, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, State Auditor Betty Montgomery, and Attorney General Jim Petro are involved in this major issue.  AMERICABLOG, have been on the Coin Gate scandal from day one, while citizens from Licking County, OH, via their blog LicoPAC, have been covering the story through their local angle. After all the election shaningans in the Buckeye State, this is the biggest political scandal to hit the state decades. What was that saying again - as Ohio goes, so goes the nation.

Lastly, on a positive note on our efforts of taking pro-active measures to clean up political scandals involving big money and powerful politicians, here is the latest on Connecticut clean elections campaign:Stay tuned, we are all on the edge. As soon as we hear the latest from Connecticut, you will be the first to know.

Good morning everyone.  Will try to do these news round ups more often from now on Monday mornings since there are so many developments taking place every day in number of issues we cover here at Common Cause.  This is shaping up to be a busy week.  First, on the subject of public broadcasting, the Baltimore Sun's Michael Hill channels ghosts of Nixon, in referring to the recent reports of Kenneth Tomlinson investigating public broadcasting for political "balance":Staying on the same topic, Democrats who are ranking members of couple of committees with control over public broadcasting are calling for an investigation of Tomlinson:Obviously, we are going to keep a close eye on this story since we are collecting signatures from thousands of media reform activists who are fed up with these reports, and are asking Chairman Tomlinson and rest of the CPB Board to stop playing politics with public broadcasting.  More than 32,000 activists have already signed our petition, if you haven't done so already, click here to join our cause today.

Switching gear to ethics, the New York Times, looks into the link between Tom DeLay's former friend and close associate Jack Abramoff, the disgraced super lobbyist from Washington D.C. and one of the most influential figures in the GOP.Interesting stuff - which I'd imagine an outside counsel, beyond the parameters of DeLay's sphere of influence and free of conflict of interest, will explore if he or she gets to investigate the allegations against Tom DeLay.

I will end with this Washington Post update concenring the latest on what will be the topic in our nation's political landscape this week - FILIBUSTER:Ed is going to be writing more on filibuster throughout the week.  So please stay tuned.