The Center for Public Integrity

House Republican Leader John Boehner’s high-profile speech yesterday urging the Obama administration to fire its top economic advisers and offering advice on job creation reflects the Ohio congressman’s long ties to the business sector, detailed in the Center for Public Integrity’s investigation, “John Boehner: A Pro-Business Agenda.”

Conservative group American Crossroads, launched barely six months ago with help from GOP uber-consultants Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove, has raised $17.6 million through August 20, the group’s president Steven Law told the Center for Public Integrity.

What do the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC), and the new American Crossroads group have in common this summer?

The White House quietly informed the U.S. Senate late last week that it has withdrawn the nomination of labor lawyer John J. Sullivan for a seat on the Federal Elections Commission. The nomination of Sullivan, a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lawyer, was announced over 15 months ago and had sailed through the Senate Rules Committee in June 2009.

A master pay-to-play defense lobbyist in the center of a controversial web of Capitol Hill relationships highlighted by the Center for Public lntegrity was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury.

Five of the nation’s largest health insurers are in serious discussions about creating a new nonprofit group and bankrolling it to the tune of about $20 million to influence tight congressional races and boost the image of their industry.

Lobbyist Julie Domenick received a request for documents in an Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) investigation into eight House lawmakers who solicited campaign contributions from financial institutions while reform legislation was being debated, according to The New York Times. But who is she, exactly? Domenick is president of lobby firm Multiple Strategies LLC and appears to be its sole lobbyist, according to lobbying disclosure documents examined by the Center for Public Integrity. Since its founding in July 2007, Multiple Strategies has raked in over $2 million from six clients.

A $6.2 million federal spending request by U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks is intended solely for the University of Washington — and no money will be shared with business partner Intellicheck Mobilisa, a university spokesman said.

To jumpstart fundraising, the pro-Republican American Crossroads 527 group is reaching out to powerful politicos such as ex-Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas and aggressively using a new money-collecting entity that can give donors more privacy.

The discovery of a second labor union filing inaccurate lobbying reports underscores a more systematic problem acknowledged by special interest and good government groups alike – that the current lobbying disclosure system is troubled, confusing and lacks safeguards needed to ensure full compliance with the law.