From the Washington Post: Jeffrey Birnbaum decries the weak lobby reform bills and the seeming unwillingness of the Republican Leadership to enact anything at all - even the weak bills passed by the House and Senate. He's not alone. "Initially, I worried that Congress would do this bill too quickly and that it might not be as well-thought-out as it needed to be," said Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which had partial jurisdiction over the legislation. "That fear seems ludicrous now."

People For the American Way Foundation has put out an alert asking for signatures on a petition to Ohio's Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review to reject voter registration regulations that "effectively prevent many nonpartisan civic engagement groups from conducting voter registration activities there. The clear victims of these rules are the members of marginalized groups who are often the focus of registration campaigns. This is voter suppression, plain and simple." The committee meets to vote on Monday, June 26. The online petition is at http://www.pfaw.org/go/OHsuppression

From Roll Call: It was dispiriting enough that Senate and House Republicans passed weak lobbying reform bills this spring. Since then, embarrassing revelations have surfaced on the Democratic side and the GOP won the race to succeed imprisoned ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R) in his California district. If Republicans decide that the ethical heat is off, what emerges from a House-Senate conference — if anything ever does — is likely to be downright pathetic.

Over 100 organizations came together to send a letter to Congress on June 19th, asking that legislators stop using software that blocks constituent messages sent through organization websites. For the letter and its signers, click here.