Common Cause released a couple of reports this year detailing how the subprime mortgage industry spent millions on lobbying and campaign contributions fighting legislation the may have prevented, or at least lessen the impact of, the subprime mortgage collapse. Interestingly, an earlier legislative victory by a different arm of the same industry likely exacerbated the effects of the subprime meltdown: the 2005 bankruptcy law.

When we released our first report in May about how much money subprime mortgage interests spent on lobbying and campaign contributions to fight consumer protections in Congress from 1999 to 2006, the word "subprime" was just starting to find its way in newspaper headlines. Since then, the media has been saturated with stories of how foreclosure rates continue to reach record levels, how investment firms from here to China that have holdings in the subprime market are getting burned, and how the effects of the subprime meltdown are leaking into other sectors of the economy. So we thought now would be a good time to revisit the issue.

We analyzed newly available data for the same top subprime lenders and trade associations from the first report to see what they've been doing. Here's what we found: despite facing serious financial struggles since the mortgage collapse, the biggest subprime lenders have spent $32 million in the first half of 2007 on lobbying and campaign donations to fight overwhelming public pressure on Congress to enact reforms for the subprime market.

To read the report, click here.

The official third quarter fundraising totals for the presidential candidates have recently been made available and there have been a lot of news articles and analyses about what it all means, so here is a quick wrap up: a heck of a lot of money is being raised. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, all of the candidates combined have raised more than twice as much money as the 2004 candidates did during the same period in 2003 -- $404 million this year through September 30th compared to only $188 million at the same time four years ago. Senator Clinton's campaign has raised $91 million alone, passing the $85 million mark posted by the Bush fundraising juggernaut through September 30, 2003. Senator Barack Obama is not far behind with $80 million in total receipts.

Much has been written about how the Internet has broadened base of fundraising since the 2004 presidential elections. But as Josh has already noted in his post earlier this week about an analysis by the Campaign Finance Institute, large donors still rule. What I thought was interesting, however, was how dependency on small donations varies widely among the candidates. Representative Tom Tancredo has raised a whopping 80 percent of his campaign contributions from small donations - defined as $200 or less. Meanwhile Senator Chris Dodd was the least dependent on small donations, raising only 4 percent of his donations in small contributions. Overall, small donations represent only 21 percent of the total fundraising. Between the two financial frontrunners, Senator Obama has raised twice the percentage of his total contributions from small donations compared to Senator Clinton - 28 percent to 12 percent.