"Kloppenburg requests recount in Supreme Court race"

The latest from Wisconsin.

"McConnell slams executive order to allow White House to demand political records before awarding contracts"

WaPo reports.

"Legal Defense Funds as Political Organizations"

Ellen Aprill has posted this fascinating paper (from Tax Notes) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Senator John Ensign registered his legal defense fund as a section 527 organization. He appears to be unique in this regard. This report lays out the advantages of, and difficulties with, registering a congressional legal defense fund as a section 527 organization. It begins by offering as background a summary of the congressional and executive branch rules that apply to these funds, the Federal Election Commission's position on them, and a brief description of the best-known legal defense funds the two established by President Clinton.

The report then considers whether contributions to funds that do not register as section 527 organizations are income to the official and, if so, whether there are matching deductions. The report examines whether contributors to the legal defense funds could have gift tax liability. It concludes the tax section by examining whether the trust would be considered a grantor trust. It concludes that both the politicians for which the fund was established and contributors to it could face tax liability under current law.

The report then explains how an amendment to section 527 in 1988 permits the use of a section 527 organization for such a fund and describes how that use can avoid both income and gift tax liability that a legal defense fund might otherwise generate. The report also discusses how a legal defense fund becomes a section 527 organization and describes two funds established by state officeholders that operated as section 527 organizations. Finally, the report recommends that the House and Senate rules regarding legal expense funds be amended to explicitly recognize section 527 legal defense funds.

"Campaign Contributions Rise When Foreclosure Investigation Begins"

The National Institute on Money in State Politics offers this report.

"Presidential Visits: more distortion created by the Electoral College"

This item appears on the FairVote blog.

More Hayward, Tokaji Entires in PENNUMBRA Debate

Check it out.

SCOTUSBlog's Lyle Denniston on President Obama's Potential CU Executive Order

See here.