Republican Senate candidate Brandon Anderson needed $800, and quick, in order to qualify for the public subsidy for legislative candidates. So he proposed that he and fellow GOP candidates swap donations to each other to help them all qualify -- a move that has attracted the attention of the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.

Political watchers waiting for a firm ruling on the months-long debate over whether the Republican Party of Minnesota is responsible for 2010 gubernatorial recount debt might still be seeking answers after a key campaign finance board meeting next week.

Lobbyist spending reports from this year’s legislative session have been unveiled by the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board (CFPD). But a word of caution is warranted in assessing the numbers: They don’t include lobbyists’ salaries.

This summer Minnesota’s campaign finance agency will make its way through a couple of pending challenges brought by a watchdog group that’s taking a number of Republican-centered causes to task.

The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board has dismissed a complaint alleging reporting violations by Sen. Dave Thompson. Earlier this month the Minnesota DFL Party filed a complaint against the GOP legislator arguing that $70,000 in payments from the state Republican Party should have been disclosed in a public filing.

Campaign Finance Board Chairman Gary Goldsmith said, per state law, he could not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.

In a meeting on Thursday the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board (CFPD) continued to refashion its advisory opinions concerning the fundraising and campaigning practices of ballot campaigns that will try to influence the outcome of next year’s ballot initiative concerning gay marriage.

Not only calling the disclosure guideline unnecessary and unfair, the group's chairman also questioned whether it is a change the Campaign Finance Board has the authority to make.

The news that state campaign finance officials had released a long-awaited statement on donor disclosure rules barely made a ripple in the political news cycle, but the opinion figures to make Minnesota a critical battleground in the national, post-Citizens United legal war over transparency, privacy and campaign money.

The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board has released a much anticipated set of rules that tells ballot initiative campaigns if they need to disclose the original sources of their financial donors.