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An ongoing FBI investigation into campaign donations to New York City Comptroller John Liu has caused a reassessment of his candidacy for mayor among his strongest supporters.

Paul Blumenthal, reporter for the Huffington Post and former senior writer for the Sunlight Foundation, discusses the proliferation of PACs coming out of the GOP, big labor, and even Facebook. 

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The first big deadline for presidential candidates to report their campaign fund raising donations is approaching at the end of June.

Among the GOP hopefuls, Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Minn) is getting a lot of attention for her past ability to turn big political statements into campaign cash. She welcomed a million dollar windfall into her campaign coffers the day after a 2008 appearance on "HardBall" with Chris Matthews, where she described the Obamas as anti-American. Many are calling these controversial statements and sloganeering "Money Blurting." But will Bachman’s blurts be enough to siphon donations away from the money making machine that is the Mitt Romney campaign and other candidates?

Paul Blumenthal, senior writer for the Sunlight Foundation, offers a post-election look at campaign funding during this election and addresses PACs, the most expensive races, and last-minute money.

When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United, there were all kinds of doomsday predictions about the impact of the ruling. Most famously was Barack Obama's comments during his State of the Union address:

"Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said. "Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."

These mid-term elections are seeing massive amounts of money being raised and spent both left and right, from party committees to outside independent groups — much, much more money than the last mid-term elections in 2006. Over $260 million has been spent by outside groups, who have been able to remain largely anonymous since the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, earlier this year. 

But what are contributors expecting in return for their millions of dollars? 

We’re nearing the end of the campaign trail for candidates seeking to win over voters in this November’s upcoming mid-term elections.  Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich and Mike Shear, chief political reporter for the Caucus Blog at our partner The New York Times, are joining us every Tuesday to give us updates on what the candidates are up to on the trail.

With just weeks until midterm elections, millions of dollars are being poured into political campaigns. But with fewer disclosure requirements since Citizens United v. FEC, few groups have disclosed the names of donors who pay for their political ads. New York Times reporter Mike McIntire talks about the difficulty he faced trying to trace the source of money an ad by the vaguely-named "Coalition to Protect Seniors."

We’re headed into midterm season and today we talk about money: specifically, the money flowing into campaigns this season, including who’s getting it, how they’re getting it and who it’s coming from. The difficulty is, our political system has many different mechanisms that get money to candidates.  

New Supreme Court rulings now let independent expenditure committees, or "SuperPACS" and other political action committees accept and spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign ads that either support or defame candidates. They can do this without having to disclose who their donations are coming from or how much money is donated. 

Bob Hennelly, WNYC reporter, looks at the "loophole" in campaign finance of limited liability companies.

An investigation by WNYC has found that Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo has been accepting large amounts of money from limited liability corporations, a practice that is legal but is widely believed to skirt the intent of campaign law.

Assemblywoman Joan Millman of Brooklyn is sponsoring a bill to close the loophole on LLCs donating huge sums of money to political campaigns in New York. She says she hopes Cuomo will rethink his decision to take so much money from these groups.

Andrew Cuomo has been stumping the state, calling for a top-to-bottom overhaul of New York's campaign finance laws. But a review of his campaign finance filings shows he's been reaping multiple contributions from business entities known as limited liability companies, or LLCs. And some of those donations come from LLCs associated with a family with a history of ties to Cuomo and his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Azi Paybarah, WNYC reporter, talks about the latest campaign fund-raising and endorsements.

According to a new report, spending on state Supreme Court elections has doubled in the last decade. According to polls, three in four Americans believe money spent on campaigns for judgeships can affect later courtroom decisions; some states are calling for methods to protect the court system from special-interest money donated during election season.

The Senate will vote today on the DISCLOSE Act, a bill already approved by the House, that would require corporations to disclose their spending on federal political campaigns and to reveal their identities in any political ads they fund. The bill is being seen as the Democrats' answer to the Supreme Courts's ruling on the Citizens United case, which allowed big corporations, domestic and foreign, to spend unlimited amounts of money on American elections.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court effectively overturned The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, the campaign finance reform passed in 2002.  Senators John Mcain (R-Ariz.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) designed the law to limit the influence of big business and labor unions on elections. 

We've gotten many, many calls and email messages this week from you, our listeners, about the special election in Massachusetts, the chances for national health care reform and yesterday's Supreme Court ruling.

The Supreme Court's decision yesterday in Citizens United v. FEC will significantly change the legal landscape for campaign finance, allowing corporations, unions and other organizations to spend as much as they like for ads supporting a particular candidate or party.

In what will certainly be looked back upon as a landmark and highly controversial decision, the Supreme Court reversed longstanding restrictions on campaign finance yesterday: specifically, laws restricting corporations and corporate money during election season.