A joint analysis by iWatch News and the Center for Responsive Politics has found that the 15 freshmen members of the Tea Party Caucus have embraced many of the same special interests that have supported Republicans for years.

The fifteen combined have received over $3,450,000 during the first three quarters of this year from almost 700 different PACs. It’s an impressive haul for a group of newly elected House members. But it shouldn’t be surprising that these fresh faces found new friends in Washington.

The Arizona Supreme Court Thursday evening reinstated the chairwoman of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, rebuffing Gov. Jan Brewer¹s unprecedented action earlier this month.

The ruling came less than three hours after the court heard arguments on the case, which revolved around the extent to which the commission is free of outside political interference.The court decided the governor's Nov. 1 removal letter to Colleen Coyle Mathis did not demonstrate "substantial neglect of duty, gross misconduct in office or inability to discharge the duties of office."

The day the Supreme Court gathered behind closed doors to consider the politically divisive question of whether it would hear a challenge to President Obama’s healthcare law, two of its justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, were feted at a dinner sponsored by the law firm that will argue the case before the high court.

The occasion was last Thursday, when all nine justices met for a conference to pore over the petitions for review. One of the cases at issue was a suit brought by 26 states challenging the sweeping healthcare overhaul passed by Congress last year, a law that has been a rallying cry for conservative activists nationwide.

While Tuesday's elections haven't gotten nearly the attention that a candidate for next year's presidential election has, voters across the country were casting ballots on races that mattered to them locally and had implications nationally.

Even as Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain was holding a nationally televised news conference to rebut sexual harassment allegations from the 1990s, a measure in Ohio to overturn the anti-collective bargaining measure that Republican Gov. John Kasich signed into law earlier this year was being interpreted as a barometer of next year's presidential election.