Yikes, I wouldn't want to face those kind of numbers. According to the Sacramento Bee, Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) is going to have to:

Rep. John Doolittle's practice of paying a 15 percent fundraising commission to a company owned by his wife violates the ethical standards of the industry, a national group of fundraising professionals told the congressman this week. The 27,000-member Association of Fundraising Professionals said in a letter to Doolittle that its long-standing ethics code "explicitly prohibits percentage-based compensation" and urged his campaign to cease doing so with Julie Doolittle's company, Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions.

Of course, Doolittle's top aide and political advisor Ricahrd Robinson says that their percentage-based compensation is "common in the industry, but it is consistent with the history of Congressman Doolittle's own campaigns." The head of the Association thinks otherwise:

Association head Paulette Maehara said she was so alarmed when she read the campaign's explanation for the practice in a weekend story in the Washington Post that she wrote Doolittle's office to complain. She said she also would have written Julie Doolittle except that her company is not publicly listed. "This is absolutely not the standard in the industry," she said. "Fundraisers can charge a flat fee, an hourly fee or a combination of both. We do support incentive compensation as long as it is not based on the percentage of the money raised."

The controversy surrounding Julie Doolittle's fundraising, which has netted her $180,000 in commissioned fees since 2003, may cause her to move to a flat rate fee.

Patrick Collins, prosecuting attorney in the Gov. George Ryan corruption case:

"Public officials have a duty of honest services; that is, to serve the people and not their private interests. Anybody who hears this, if they want to serve their private interest, they ought to go get a job in the private sector."

Read more reactions to Ryan's conviction and what it means for politics and Illinois in this Chicago Tribune article.

Here's an interesting piece in Slate comparing the three scandals of Abramoff, Pellicano, and Jared Paul Stern and how they each reflect on their respective city. Of course, here in Washington we could care less about wiretapped Hollywood stars or bribery on Page Six. But we do care about influence being bought and sold:

Washington's scandal is about influence, a commodity bought and sold there as it is nowhere else. ... Much as his former colleagues may try to deny it, Abramoff's practices were not a departure from the way Washington ordinarily does business, but rather a too-brazen expression of it. Nearly all lobbyists-for-hire brandish their connections at the White House and on Capitol Hill to impress their clients. They grease the skids with campaign donations, favors, and fancy entertainment. Stylistically, they tend to echo Abramoff's ostentatious religious piety, his humorless self-regard, his regrettable wardrobe choices. Though a horrible cartoon, Abramoff also represents the reality of Bush's Washington. His distinguishing, fatal error was to draw too much attention to himself while doing on a grander scale what thousands do there every day.

George F. Will's interesting column, on the race to fill the open seat in Colorado's seventh district, brought to mind a piece of paper that crossed my desk a few weeks back. It's a fax, much like the dozens of others that are sent each week to the offices of Washington's lobbying firms and Political Action Committee directors, asking the insiders in the corridors of power to pony up money.

First the Will column: If I can give a Cliff notes version of it, it goes something like, "A true Reaganite conservative is facing a Republican base demoralized by Congress' big spending, President Bush's big spending and missteps (i.e., Harriet Miers abortive Supreme Court nomination), but still might win because the bitter primary fight between the two Democratic hopefuls, Ed Perlmutter and Peggy Lamm, are wearing each other out in the run up to the August 8th primary.

The title from the Texas Monthly political obit of Tom DeLay.

Hilarious article by Buster Gunning on the empty luxury suites at Washington Nationals games since "king of lobbyists" Jack Abramoff's fall from grace. Here's a key graph:

Washington Nationals' officials are scrambling to figure out a way to fill the expensive suites. One idea that saw marginal success was the “Adopt a Politician for a Day” campaign where various politicians in need of kickbacks lined up outside of the stadium in hopes of being auctioned off to the highest bidder who would then purchase one of the many lavish suites available.

An appeals court judge has thrown out a conspiracy charge brought against Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) but has maintained the more serious charge of money laundering, according to the Associated Press. Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker writes, "The appeals court's decision clears the way for a trial date being set. The main event shouldn't be far off -- I'd expect it sometime in late summer." They have the indictment if you'd like to read it.

• Coming off of the Dow Jones Wires an FEC report released along with the announcement of a $3.8 million settlement with Freddie Mac notes that Freddie Mac's top lobbyist R. Mitchell Delk had a "bold and unprecedented" political model for Financial Services Chairman Michael Oxley (R-OH). Delk's "bold" plan went something like this, "we proposed to Chairman Oxley a political model that was bold and unprecedented. We offered to use our fundraising model to marry his interests as Chairman with our interest in assisting committee members supportive of the continued strength of America's housing finance system..." That's about as out in the open that you can get about your intents.
• Pharmaceutical companies are costing the federal government billions of dollars by lobbying against bipartisan legislation that would "speed the approval of new generics," according to the Washington Post.
• Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC) fights back in today's Ashville Citizen-Times against charges that he accepted money from Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm in exchange for favorable action on the Saginaw Chippewa school construction earmark
  
• Pennsylvania lobbyist and ex-aide to former Governor Tom Ridge (R) pled guilty to felony charges of mail fraud and embezzlement, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
• The Kansas City Star reports that the Missouri House is considering a lobbying and campaign finance reform bill that would create more transparency in the state capitol. The bill requires lobbyists report all gifts and spending on lawmakers, including when they give to groups of lawmakers. It would also require lawmakers to post electronically all campaign contributions so that they can be audited by the State Ethics Commission. Inaccuracies and mistakes in lobbyist disclosure forms and lawmaker campaign contribution receipts would be posted online by the Ethics Commission.
• The Hill takes a look at the new DefCon ad that focuses the Jack Abramoff scandal.
• Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington has filed a complaint against Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) alleging that he accepted bribes from a San Francisco defense firm in exchange for his support of earmarks that benefited the company.

TPM Muckraker Paul Kiel has a great post on David Safavian's e-mails with Jack Abramoff. Apparently, they contain the itinerary for the infamous Scotland gofing junket... excuse me, the trip to see Scotish Parliamentarians and visit the British Parliament. As Kiel notes, I bet Bob Ney didn't think that these e-mails would get out.

If you're going to accuse a politician of improperly spending money or you are questioning disparities in their statements you should really think about what you are talking about before you shoot your mouth off. You might get embarrassed:

When Jim Barnett tried to raise eyebrows about a Bernie Sanders television ad buy last week, Sanders' campaign had a ready response. A Sanders spokesman said the campaign had spent about $30,000 on the ad buy. Records at South Burlington TV station WCAX showed him spending only $13,668, said Barnett, the chairman of the Vermont Republican Party. "Right now, there is a $16,000 gap in the facts," said Barnett. "U.S. Rep. Sanders needs to explain where the rest of this money was spent." That's easy, said Jeff Weaver, Sanders' campaign manager. "There's more than one broadcast station," he said.