ABCnews.com is reporting today that K Street lobbyists are swarming Capitol Hill, outnumbering members of Congress six to one, as health care reform legislation is being debated in Congress.

"Whenever you have a big piece of legislation like this, it's like ringing the dinner bell for K Street," said Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation.

An article today in the North Carolina Policy Watch blog explains how vastly different the current health care reform debate in Congress would be without industry cash flying around the Capitol.

The story goes on to mention the Fair Elections Now Act (H.R.1826), which has been co-sponsored by Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), as a way to curtail the influence of health care industry campaign contributions.

Public Campaign Action Fund issues a press release today praising the selection of former California Treasurer Phil Angelides as the chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and urged Angelides and the other commissioners to investigate the role that campaign contributions from Wall Street and big banking interests played in precipitating the economic crisis.

The Baltimore Sun has an editorial today on the battle in Congress over health care reform and the role that big money will play in the outcome. The editorial cites a recently released report by Common Cause.

The Public Campaign Action Fund issued a press release today on Sen. Chuck Grassley's (R-Iowa) fundraiser hosted by mortgage and insurance industry PAC's and lobbyists. The special interest fundraiser comes after Grassley voted against a bill opposed by the hosts to allow bankruptcy judges to renegotiate mortgages. The Huffington Post posted a story on the release.

The Public Campaign Action Fund issued a press release on Monday showing that the nine Senators who sent a letter to Pres. Obama opposing a public option for health care have received over $17 million in campaign contributions from the health care and insurance industries.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the House of Representatives voted to force the ethics committee to report on what, if any, actions have been taken in a federal probe of PMA Group, a now-defunct defense lobbying firm and a senior House Democrat.

According to the article, the vote referred the resolution to the ethics committee, which must independently approve it before it takes effect.

The New York Times ran a story yesterday on the re-regulation of the financial industry in Congress and how the impact of huge amounts of campaign cash poured in by the industry has affected efforts for reform.

“The banks run the place,” Rep. Peterson said. “I will tell you what the problem is — they give three times more money than the next biggest group. It’s huge the amount of money they put into politics.”

A few weeks ago, the Center For Responsive Politics released a report showing that winning U.S. House candidates raised an average of $1.1 million in the 2008 cycle.

Yesterday, the USA Today shed more light on the story. Here's what their analysis found:

There will be a lot of new faces on Capitol Hill come January and as The Hill reports this morning, their first few months will be like the first day you sign up for Facebook: friend requests galore.