Lobbying and ethics reform may be causing fissures in the Republican caucus, but they are coming together around a campaign finance reform that targets independent ‘527’ organizations. The Washington Post reports, “As part of the House GOP proposals, ‘527’ organizations that operate independently of the political parties would no longer be allowed to collect unlimited sums from individuals. … Instead, the groups would be governed by federal campaign finance laws that would restrict such giving to a total of $30,000 from individuals per year.” ‘527’ groups, named after the section of the tax code that governs them, “heavily aided Democrats in the 2004 elections” with such groups as MoveOn and others accepting millions of dollars in donations from small numbers of donors. While Democrats tend to use ‘527’s more than Republicans the group Progress for America, which is closely tied to the White House, helped push the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito and waged a campaign against Iraq war protester Cindy Sheehan.