Wednesday, a federal district court judge ruled against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for not requiring 527 groups to register as political committees, thereby allowing the soft-money groups to avoid spending limitations, because, “the FEC has failed to present a reasoned explanation for its decision that 527 organizations will be more effectively regulated through case-by-case adjudication rather than general rule.” Judge Emmet Sullivan said.

(But WITH grassroots lobby disclosure!) Today, the Senate passed S. 2349, the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act, by a roll call vote of 90-8 — which did not include amendments introduced by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) to add a provision to the Lobby Disclosure Act stating that if a 501 (c) organization engages in lobbying activities with federal funds, an officer of the organization can be imprisoned for not more than 5 years and fined.

Every time you turn around, there are differing reports from the House on how it plans to deal with lobby reform. From CQ Today: Many members oppose the travel moratorium as well as language that would require disclosure of the name of each member who has inserted any earmark in a general appropriations bill or the report accompanying it. Other, less contentions provisions would require more disclosures from lobbyists about their interactions and gifts to members and would eliminate the pensions of members convicted of crimes related to their office.

In the House, the House Rules committee will hold the first markup of the House Lobbying Reform bill HR 4975 this Thursday to markup the provisions that fall under their jurisdiction. There has been a commitment by Republican leadership to go through the committee process with all provisions of the bill, which means as many as 5 different committee markups may occur. At the same time, the House calendar for next week has lobbying reform and 527 reform legislation on it for consideration.