Last week The Hill reported on the ever-expanding lobbying footprint of Facebook in Washington. The company hired the lobbying firm Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, a firm close to Republicans in high office. At the same time, the firm hired another lobbying firm, Elmendorf Strategies, with close connections to Democratic congressional leadership.

Elmendorf Strategies is the eponymous firm of Steve Elmendorf, a former top level congressional staffer and Democratic Party insider. Elmendorf served as chief of staff to House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt from 1992 to 2004. In 2004, Elmendorf was chief of staff to Gephardt's presidential bid and later became deputy campaign manager to the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry. Elmendorf worked for Bryan & Cave before forming his own lobbying firm in 2007.

The Facebook lobbying registration lists three registered lobbyists from Elmendorf Strategies. They are Elmendorf, Jimmy Ryan, and Brian LaSala. Ryan is a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He served the Nevada Senator for a decade before leaving to head the lobbying shop of Citigroup. Ryan bolted Citigroup in 2009 to work for Elmendorf. LaSala formerly worked as Counsel for Sen. Kerry on issues related to the Massachusetts Senator's work on the Small Business, Commerce, and Finance Committees. LaSala also previously worked as a lobbyist for Microsoft.

The dual hiring of Elmendorf Strategies and Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock provide Facebook with entree into both the halls of the Democratic Senate Leadership and the Republican House Leadership.

This comes as Capitol Hill is placing more attention on the growing social networking giant. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote to Zuckerberg with 18 detailed questions about a series of reported privacy breaches that involved personally identifiable information from millions of Facebook users being transmitted to third-party applications. And on [February 2], Barton and Markey fired off another letter to Zuckerberg, expressing concerns about Facebook's plans to share user addresses and mobile phone numbers with developers and websites."

Other issues may require the talents of the recently hired cadre of lobbyists including the Federal Trade Commission's effort to support the creation of a do-not-track mechanism and a Commerce Department call for companies to create an online privacy bill of rights.

Facebook, which is used to being splashed across computer and new screens, has also been plastered on protest signs across the Middle East as pro-democracy revolutionaries have touted the site as a tool to tear down dictators. While most of the coverage has been incredibly positive for Facebook, the company's policy of requiring the use of a real name for users has irked some who believe pseudonymous use could help protect users organizing in repressive nations.

LaSala's previous work for Sen. Kerry, now the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, could help Facebook meet any challenge or discussion regarding their policies as they affect the popular uprisings in the Middle East.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised a vote on a bill to end the practice of secret holds in the Senate before the end of the year. Reid has now informed the senators pushing the bill that he will hold a vote on the bill as an amendment to the defense authorization bill, according to CongressDaily.

Senate Majority Leader Reid has informed Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., that a bill they have co-sponsored to curtail secret holds will receive a vote as an amendment to the defense authorization bill that Reid plans to move to next week, McCaskill and Senate aides said today.

...

More than 60 senators have signed a letter circulated by McCaskill that urged curtailing secret holds through steps like the Wyden-Grassley proposal, generating expectations that the plan has the votes to overcome any filibuster. But how the measure is brought up may influence how much support it can get.

All 67 senators who signed a letter supporting this bill circulated by Sen. Claire McCaskill should vote yes on this bill when it comes up as an amendment next week. This is a test of whether senators wish to have a more transparent and open Congress or not.

They received billions in help from the federal government to stay afloat during the worst days of the financial crisis and they've--mostly--paid it all back since. Now the top six biggest recipients of money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program--the Treasury Department program adopted in 2008 to shore up troubled banks--are contributing to the campaigns of congressional office seekers across the political spectrum.

Of the top fifteen recipients of campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, five are running for office in New York state, Wall Street's home base, and five are Republican candidates seeking election to the Senate. This is based on data collected from the Center for Responsive Politics.

These six banks were the biggest recipients of money from the bailout fund created by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Bank of America and Citigroup each received $45 billion, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo received $25 billion each and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both received $10 billion. Only Citigroup has failed to fully repay the money to the Treasury Department. Citigroup still owes $14 billion.

While the high number of contributions sent to New York pols and key individual lawmakers may be predictable, the presence of a number of Republican candidates seeking to become freshmen senators in the 112th Congress is not. Republicans have successfully used public anger against the bank bailouts to their advantage during the run-up to this fall's midterm elections.

Rob Portman, a former congressman, U.S. Trade Representative and director of the Office of Management and Budget in the George W. Bush administration running for the Senate in Ohio, is the leading recipient of big bailout bank money among GOP Senate aspirants, having raised $97,592 from the six banks.

Portman, who stated he would have voted for the bailout bill, has not run directly against the bailouts, but has taken a position that the bailout money that has been paid back to Treasury should be used to pay down the deficit.

Other GOP Senate aspirants among the top fifteen recipients of big bailout bank contributions include California's Carly Fiorina ($94,850), Illinois' Mark Kirk ($81,275), Delaware's Mike Castle ($66,000) and Missouri's Roy Blunt ($65,642).

Blunt, Castle and Kirk currently serve in the House of Representatives and all three voted in support of the bailout on October 3, 2008. They also all voted against the financial reform bill in 2010.

Fiorina, as a top advisor in the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, defended McCain's support of the bailout bill, but is now running against the bailout. In a recent debate Fiorina attacked her opponent, Sen. Barbara Boxer, for voting for the bailout and receiving campaign contributions from banking executives. The latter attack came despite the fact that Fiorina received more in contributions over the course of 2009-2010 from the six big bailout banks than Boxer.

The top recipient of contributions from the six big banks is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand with $241,000. Gillibrand is running in her first Senate election after being appointed to take the seat of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gillibrand has long relied on these big banks to provide funds for her campaigns. All of the banks, save for Bank of America, rank as top career donors to Gillibrand's campaign efforts.

The second-biggest recipient of contributions from these six banks is Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Banking, House and Urban Affairs. Over the 2010 election cycle Shelby received $127,050 from the big bailout banks.

While Shelby voted against the bailout legislation in 2008, he played an instrumental role in opposing the financial regulatory bill advocated for by President Obama, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd and House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank. Many in the financial sector, particularly the six big banks, opposed pieces of, if not the entirety of, the financial regulatory bill and worked to strip it of as many provisions as possible.

Shelby focused sharply on a provision designed to liquidate firms that were no longer solvent instead of bailing them out with Treasury funds. Shelby declared the liquidation fund to be a proposal for bailout forever and won concessions from the Democrats in the debate over the provision.

The other candidates hailing from New York state include freshman congressmen Scott Murphy ($105,050) and Mike McMahon ($103,350), senior senator and long-time Wall Street booster Chuck Schumer ($99,100) and Reshma Saujani ($88,200), the Democratic primary challenger to Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

Murphy, who won a 2009 special election to the upstate seat formerly occupied by Gillibrand, has long ties to the financial industry having worked for Bankers Trust and Advantage Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. McMahon, whose Staten Island district houses many employees in the financial sector, fought hard for the bank's positions on derivatives during the debate over the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.

Saujani is the only non-incumbent candidate for the House ranked in the top fifteen recipients of big bailout bank contributions. Earlier this year Saujani, a Wall Street banker, touted her Street cred by stating that she was, "running on my Wall Street record, not from it.” Saujani, in defending Wall Street, said, "Instead of browbeating Wall Street, I want to invite them to help create jobs."

Despite the in flux of contributions from the financial sector that have buoyed her campaign, Saujani suddenly backtracked on her statement that she would not browbeat Wall Street. In a recent debate with Maloney, Saujani attacked the congresswoman for failing to make the financial reform bill tougher and for hosting fundraisers with Wall Street lobbyists during the crafting of the reform bill.

The other four candidates ranking in the top fifteen recipients of big bailout bank contributions include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ($74,250), Connecticut congressman and former Goldman Sachs banker Jim Himes ($69,320), Senator Richard Burr ($67,680) and Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor ($66,100).

Burr, Cantor and Reid voted for the 2008 bailout. Himes was elected to Congress in 2008 after the vote had taken place. Both Reid and Himes supported the financial reform bill, while Burr and Cantor did not.

The pharmaceutical industry is beginning to wade into the 2010 midterm elections in support of those that helped to preserve a deal crafted by the White House to secure the industry's support for the health care reform bill that President Barack Obama signed into law in March.

The first advertisements are appearing in support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, according to The Washington Examiner's Tim Carney.

Here's the ad:

In 2009, the White House met with leaders from the pharmaceutical industry and their lobbyist in Washington to determine what could be done to get the industry to support the administration's health care reform efforts. Ultimately, a deal was reached whereby the drug companies would support the bill through advertising and lobbying and the White House and Congress would ensure that cost-savings extracted from the industry would not top $80 billion or include certain provisions including the re-importation of drugs and providing Medicare with negotiating authority over prescription drug plans. (For the full story on the deal click here.)

Reid successfully shepherded the health care reform bill, with the pharmaceutical industry deal intact, through the Senate despite criticism coming from different wings of the Democratic Party.

Throughout the process Reid mobilized Democrats to block efforts to alter the terms of the deal between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry.

In the Senate Finance Committee, three Democrats sided with Republicans to block an amendment that would have fully closed the donut-hole in Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage.

When the bill came to the floor for a vote Reid successfully whipped Democrats to vote against an amendment that would have provided for the re-importation of drugs from first-world countries, a provision that Democrats had long supported and campaigned on. The amendment failed with many Democrats voting against it.

Reid has received more than just television advertising support from the pharmaceutical industry. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Reid has received $361,850 in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry over the course of his career.

Fifty-four percent of that total--$198,450--came from contributions made in 2009 and 2010.

As the Examiner's Carney points out, Reid is the second leading recipient of pharmaceutical campaign contributions for 2009-2010. A large number of the contributions were made around the time of key events in the crafting of the deal between the White House and the drug companies.

As noted below, the Baucus health care bill was finally released in legislative language (soon to be available on Open Congress) -- finally. The bill has jumped from 262 pages in plain language to 1,502 page in legislative language. Ezra Klein does a good job of explaining why the bill is so long:

...writing laws is not like writing blog posts, or newspaper articles: It requires an archaic, clunky vernacular that spends a lot of time explaining how one piece of text amends another piece of text, and expends a lot of words clarifying the most technical matters at the most granular level. Legal language requires more words than plain English, just as Chinese uses more characters. When people complain that legislation is slightly longer than a very long book, they're saying something about their understanding of the difference between legal language and plain English, not about the law in question.

This is perfectly true and important to note. Bills that cover a giant issue like health care reform are bound to really long. This is still no excuse for Congress to not read or review the contents of the legislation (not that Klein is making this argument).

The Finance Committee's original, plain language bill version did a decent job covering the major parts of the legislation. I don't think any reasonable person is going to be surprised by the insurance mandates or Medicare waste reduction or, if it's included, a version of the public option. These pieces have been debated and read over and over again. What should be most concerning are the provisions that no one is talking about, the enticements inserted for specific states or specific industries that fly under the radar.

Bloomberg reports on some of these enticements in a report today. Increased Medicaid funding for Sen. Harry Reid's Nevada, extra money for Medicare Advantage recipients in Sen. Bill Nelson's Florida and Sen. Ron Wyden's Oregon, breaks for unions and high risk workers (miners). These are just a few of the enticements inserted into the bill in obscure legislative jargon. We aren't sure what other nuggets could be out there.

The final bill should be made available for at least 72 hours prior to consideration so that these provisions can be found out and determined if they are harmful or not. There have been too many instances of bills passing in the past with small provisions slipped in that have a large effect.

The Washington Times editorialized in favor of S. 482, the Senate e-filing bill, in today's paper. Below is a section from the editorial. Don't forget to help us pass S. 482 by going to the Pass 482 site and calling your senators to get their support:

Sen. Russell Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, has once again reintroduced legislation requiring electronic fillings by senators. Such efforts over the last six years have never reached the Senate floor. The bill has 32 co-sponsors, including conservative Thad Cochran, Mississippi Republican. This is not a partisan or ideological issue. But John Ensign, Nevada Republican, has led the strongest public effort in recent years to kill the move by insisting on the addition of a poison pill amendment requiring groups filing ethics complaints against senators to disclose their donors. While a worthwhile effort, Mr. Ensign's amendment is best left to other legislation. A similar effort is said to be contemplated by Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican, in this session.

The Senate moves slowly, a fact inherent in the deliberative nature of its design and further enhanced by the body's rules. But that does not mean those same rules should be used to avoid inconvenient scrutiny.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is said to be looking to bring the measure to the floor without additions, an unlikely event. In the absence of that move, Mr. Reid should put senators on the record with a vote. If senators from either party have any honest interest in being good stewards of the public trust, they will not continue accepting efforts to protect themselves from timely public attention.