Public Campaign issued a press release today condemning the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock. Earlier this year, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the state’s century-old Corrupt Practices Act that banned direct expenditures in elections for state offices.

At protests across the country Occupiers fought back against a political system that too often looks out for their 1% campaign donors, the supercommittee made influencing-peddling easier for special interests, and the Supreme Court once again sided with big money. Those events and more make up our 2011 list of top money-in-politics stories. 

Check out the full list and if you have your own suggestions for items we left off, leave them in the comments below.

1. Occupy’s Message Delivered

Newspapers from all over the country have been opining on Monday's Supreme Court decision in McComish v. Bennett that struck down one provision of some existing Clean Elections systems, while upholding the constitutionality of public financing programs in general.

Here's a round up of editorials so far:

Yesterday The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an editorial on the pending Supreme Court case that could allow a huge flow of corporate money into our elections and calls on Rep. Bob Brady (D-Pa.) to move forward with the Fair Elections Now Act.

Public Campaign Action Fund issued a press release today praising Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, for her campaign finance record.

"Judge Sotomayor's positions on campaign finance are squarely in the mainstream of judicial precedent and public opinion," said Nick Nyhart, executive director of Public Campaign Action Fund.

The editorial boards the Washington Post and the New York Times are none too pleased with the Supreme Court ruling against the Millionaire's Amendment provision in BCRA that provided rescue funds to candidates facing wealthy, self-financing opponents. Read on for excerpts from the editorials.

From the Post:

In a 5-4 split the Supreme Court delivered another very conservative campaign finance decision yesterday, ruling the "Millionaires' Amendment" provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform (BRCA) law unconstitutional. While its impossible to say what the full implications of this decision are, its clear the Court is no friend to laws that seek to limit the influence of private money on our elections.

Deborah Goldberg begins this article in The Nation parsing the recent Supreme Court decisions on political advertising and arguing that while disclosure requirements are all well and good, full public financing of campaigns is the ultimate answer to the battles both in court, and in the public sphere, about the best way to regulate campaign finance.

On NPR this morning, Nina Totenberg covered a speech by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in which she took DeLay to task, not by name but by deed. Here's a partial transcript, courtesy of Raw Story:

Lu Dubose, co-author with Jan Reid of The Hammer Comes Down: The Nasty, Brutish and Shortened Political Life of Tom DeLay, has a good piece over at TomPaine.com summarizing the DeLay