Public Citizen has asked 47 retiring lawmakers to sign a pledge not to take a lobbying job upon leaving Congress. The pledge states, "Upon leaving Congress, I will not accept employment or a leadership position for two years with any business that lobbies, issues lobby communications or has hired lobbyists to lobby my office, committee or staff during my last term."

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) released a proposed rulemaking schedule to write new campaign finance regulations in response to multiple recent court decisions. The most predominant cases are the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in EMILY's List v. FEC.

Many are predicting that because of the Citizens United decision, the issue of campaign finance may become a hot topic during the confirmation of the Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. President Obama has made some public statements indicating that he would like a nominee who also disapproves of the case. Stevens authored the 90 page dissent in that case.

Over two years ago, we reported that Verizon Wireless prohibited the content in a text message campaign from Naral Pro-Choice America because they claimed, "it had the right to block 'controversial or unsavory' text messages." The issue of whether or not wireless phone companies can restrict what nonprofits say in a text message to its members has come up again.  An opinion article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy discusses these issues, written by Vincent Stehle a philanthropic consultant.