NPR People: Peter Overby

The Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase and other special provisions are back in the crosshairs, as the House lurches toward final votes on the health care overhaul and reconciliation bill. Some of those provisions are being killed, while others aren't as ominous as the rhetoric makes them seem. Some examples of what's in, what's out and why.

House Republicans have launched a full-blown ethics offensive against the Democratic majority. The issues are ethics violations and spending earmarks, two lines of attack Democrats employed when they won control of Congress four years ago.

With midterm elections approaching, Democrats and Republicans are battling to claim the clean-ethics crown. That's one reason Rep. David Obey (D-WI), chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he's killing off one of lawmakers' most lucrative perks: corporate earmarks. Most of the earmarks come from the subcommittee that oversees defense spending.

On the day his resignation from the House of Representatives became official, Democrat Eric Massa leveled new charges at his party, saying he was forced out because of his opposition to the health care bill. Massa previously had said an ethics inquiry was the reason for his resignation.

President Obama says he gets that Democrats and Republicans have philosophical differences on the health care. One great divide: tort reform, where there's bipartisanship in the rhetoric, but a hard-line split on whether to cap plaintiffs' claims.

When the House Ethics Committee dropped charges against seven members of the Appropriations Committee last week, it signaled that lawmakers can keep on directing that federal dollars be spent with contractors who give them campaign contributions. But it looks a lot like condoning practices that the committee rejected just a few years ago.

Congressman Charles Rangel of New York says the House Ethics Committee is admonishing him for circumstances surrounding trips he took to the Caribbean. Rangel says the committee found the trips, paid for by corporations, violated ethics rules. Rangel, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, says he did not know about any violations, and will pay the corporations back.

The C Street Center is a religious organization based in a townhouse on Capitol Hill. The townhouse has been home to several members of Congress. A group of ministers has filed a complaint with the IRS alleging that the organization is falsely labeling itself a tax-exempt religious establishment.

A court-appointed officer in Dallas has sued national party committees, both Democratic and Republican, to recover campaign contributions from indicted financier R. Allen Stanford. The money at stake totals $1.6 million.

A nagging question in the Tea Party movement has surfaced again: Who's actually paying the bills? Some Tea Party leaders announced earlier this month that they're forming a fundraising corporation. Its goal is to raise money from other corporations and rich individuals. But they set it up so it doesn't have to disclose who those donors are.

When a big donor is felled by scandal, politicians often rush to get rid of the sullied contributions. But politicians are ignoring requests to repay nearly $2 million in contributions from financier Allen Stanford, who is charged in a Ponzi scheme.

The Nebraska Democrat says he will join with Republicans to oppose the nomination of Craig Becker to serve on the National Labor Relations Board. Nelson is the first Democrat to come out against the nomination. His decision likely means that Democrats cannot find the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster of the nominee.

Last month, the Supreme Court handed corporations a new way to spend their funds — on ads advocating for or against political candidates. So what could corporations get if they put money into a campaign instead of buying a $2.5 million Super Bowl ad? Experts say that kind of money could cover enough ads to sway some House and Senate races.

The Supreme Court ruled last month that corporations and unions can spend all they want to campaign for or against candidates. It's a huge change in the ground rules of American politics, and Democrats in Congress are convinced most of that corporate money would be spent to push them out of office.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was visibly annoyed when President Obama said in his State of the Union address that the court has allowed foreign corporations to spend money in U.S. political campaigns. Campaign finance lawyers say the ban on foreign money is intact, but Democrats are drafting legislation to fix any loopholes that may have opened.