Like we've seen with the meltdown of the financial sector, a lack of regulation leads to problems. Too often, deregulation and lack of oversight are lobbied by the industries forking over big bucks in campaign contributions to make sure they get what they want. In a column from Iowa this weekend, an advocate for senior citizens looks at the nursing home industry in the same light.

Support for Clean Elections, or full public financing of elections, has broad support across political parties and other demographics. On Saturday, Tim Urban had an op-ed published in the Des Moines Business Record showing support is also strong among those investing financially in the political process-campaign donors.

The Des Moines Register reports that the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board has launched an online searchable database for campaign contributions for candidates running for state office.

Our friends at Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement decided to find out what people in their state really think of full public financing of campaigns.  They put a poll out and the results were very encouraging  -- a full three-quarters of those surveyed expressed support.  Read more on the poll here.

This article in the Telegraph Herald begins with an examination of the eye-opening results from last week's Iowa caucus and wraps with a mention of the unprecedented spending by presidential candidates in Iowa fueling chances for the Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections Act (VOICE Act) in this year's legislative session.

Presidential candidates are hatching all kinds of schemes to get their supporters to the Iowa caucuses tonight, including apparently mobilizing snow plows to help stranded would-be-voters. No doubt several Iowans would rather the candidates help them dig out from the campaign advertising under which which the state has been blanketed thanks to record fundraising and record spending.