NEWS ROUNDUP:

• President Obama is notable for his sports watching habits and recently influencers may be taking those predilections into account. Media strategists are offering clients who are looking to target White House officials ESPN as a prime spot for their advertising dollars. (POLITICO)
• After months of speculation President Obama tapped Chicago business baron and major campaign supporter Penny Pritzker to serve as the next secretary of commerce. Pritzker, who is worth north of $1 billion, has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the President’s campaigns. (NPR)
• President Obama’s FCC nominee is hearing some criticism from Senators over his past life as a cable and wireless company wireless and blog posts suggesting urging broad regulation in exchange for allowing the, failed, AT&T + T-Mobile merger to proceed. (The Hill)
• The White House released the first version of its We The People API to the public earlier this week. Every petition that garners more than 15o signatures will have its data made available in read-only format. Meanwhile, several interesting projects using We The People data emerged from the same hackathon that launched the API. (Fedscoop, Fedscoop)
• Florida passed the first major changes to its state ethics laws in nearly three decades this week. The state also passed new campaign finance regulations. Both moves can be seen as responses to the Sunshine State’s low grades on the State Integrity Investigation. (Public Integrity)
• There are, hopefully, only a few more days of headlines from the wacky race to fill an empty South Carolina House seat. Yesterday held more good news for Elizabeth Colbert Busch, who is the beneficiary of more than $100,000 in late ad spending from the House Majority PAC. The PAC has now spent roughly $400,000 on the race. (Roll Call)
• Meanwhile, the newly minted Republican candidate for the open Massachusetts Senate seat has reaffirmed his opposition to “the peoples pledge” which aims to curb the influence of third party spending. Despite signing the pledge, and asking nicely for him to stop, Democratic candidate Ed Markey was the unwanted beneficiary of major outside outlays by a billionaire environmentalist. (Washington Post)

RELEVANT BILLS INTRODUCED:

• S. 808. A bill to establish the Office of the Inspector General of the Senate.
• H.R. 1804. The Foreign Travel Accountability Act.

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