In the winter of 2009, Georgia state legislator Rep. Calvin Hill (R-Canton) led a high-profile campaign against the teaching of public university courses that dealt with sexual health and related topics. Hill was joined by a small cadre of other conservatives who sought to end the teaching of courses dealing with topics such as male prostitution and gay history, and some of his acolytes even called for firing professors who taught these courses. Hill even appeared on CNN and boasted about an award he received for leading the battle to shut down courses dealing with sexuality. “Our public colleges are not the place for our young adults and future leaders to experiment and experience these types of sexually explicit behavior,” Hill said at the time.

Now, the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Jim Galloway reports that, while Hill may think that sex is too hot of a topic for the young adult students at public colleges in the state to handle, he’s perfectly fine making a buck off it. Galloway writes that Hill’s Democratic opponent, Stephanie Webb, has discovered that the company Hill serves as CFO of, Gila Distributing, sells numerous sex gadgets and gay pride paraphernalia through the company. These products include “stress relievers” in the shape of male sex organs and Gay Pride flag lapel pins:

Stephanie Webb is Hill’s Democratic opponent. One night, her husband/campaign manager was perusing the Gila Distributing web site and discovered more than antlers for sale:

– Foam “stress relievers” in the shape of a woman’s breast, or the male sex organ;

– “The Little Black Book of Sex Secrets,” allegedly by the author Dee Flower;

– A “safe sex” kit that includes a condom, anti-bacterial wipes, and two Lifesavers breath mints;

– And Gay Pride flag lapel pins.

Webb, a 50-year-old homemaker, has set up an Internet site displaying the products. “It wasn’t to be mean, but to show the hypocrisy,” she said.

The products being referenced can be found here, here, here, and here. “With 600,000 products, there is always a possibility that something slips through,” Hill told Galloway. “It’s certainly nothing we would sell knowingly.” The legislator also said he sees “no relationship whatsoever” between his anti-sex advocacy and the profit he makes partially by selling sex toys. “Yes, Rep. Calvin Hill talks a good game about patriotism, morals, and religion, but when money comes into the picture all those convictions go out the door,” writes the blog Georgia Politico.

Campaign expenditures by independent groups are skyrocketing in this election cycle: non-political party independent spending in Senate and House races totaled $147.5 million through mid-October, a 73 percent increase over such spending in mid-October 2008. One of the more active groups is the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) that just began a $19 million ad campaign against House Democrats in 22 districts. The group has refused to say who funds their often-misleading ads.

As ThinkProgress noted when the group was formed, AAN is controlled by a number of very wealthy Wall Street Republicans, including a former Goldman Sachs CEO and the founder of Home Depot. The founder of the group is Fred Malek, a former Nixon aide who has become quite wealthy on Wall Street, earning a net worth of between $200 and $300 million through various corporate jobs and as founder partner of the private equity firm Thayer Capital Partners.

Malek is notorious as the “Jew counter” in President Richard Nixon’s administration: he made a list of Jewish employees in the Bureau of Labor Statistics at Nixon’s behest, and was involved in reassigning or demoting those workers. But as the New York Times pointed out this weekend, Malek has significant baggage from his campaign fundraising roles during the Nixon era:

The Committee for the Re-Election of the President was also illegally hauling in many millions of dollars from corporations, many of which felt pressured into making contributions. [...]

[S]ome players shaking the corporate money trees for nonprofit groups this year cut their teeth in the Nixon re-election campaign. There is Fred Malek, a founder of the American Action Network, whose members include many well-known Republicans, like former Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Mr. Malek was the White House personnel chief in 1972 and helped dispense patronage for major Nixon donors as well as serving as deputy director of Creep.

Back then, Mr. Malek was interviewed by Hamilton Fox III, another Watergate prosecutor, and acknowledged that some of the campaign’s activities might have “bordered on the unethical.”

In addition, the Washington Post previously detailed how Malek designed a “responsiveness program” in the Nixon federal government which was explicitly intended to “politicize the federal government in support of Nixon’s reelection.”

Malek has close ties to the conservative campaign fundraising structure. On the board at AAN is former RNC chairman Ed Gilliespie, who along with Karl Rove helps coordinate the mega-spending group American Crossroads. AAN and American Crossroads share an office, and of course Rove, too, is a former Nixon campaign vet.

As noted, in the Times piece, Malek was investigated for his role in Nixon’s campaign fundraising. In today’s post-Citizens United climate, he’s a celebrated mainstream player.

Few serious observers of American politics would claim that corporate interests are underrepresented in the halls of Congress. After all, over the past two years alone, corporate special interests have spent hundreds of millions of dollars weakening health care legislation, undermining financial reform, stalling a climate change bill, and eviscerating the expansion of workers’ rights. Many of these same corporate interests are continuing to spend millions during the run up to the election, often hiding their donations behind front groups with innocuous sounding names like Americans For Job Security.

One candidate for federal office is taking the battle against these big corporate interests into his own hands. Surya Yalamanchili — a former Apprentice contestant who, as ThinkProgress previously noted, faced attacks during his primary that someone with his name can’t win — is the Democratic nominee for Congress to take on Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) in Ohio’s 2nd district. Yalamanchili is running his campaign without taking a dime from Political Action Committees (PACs), which are “organized for the purpose of raising and spending money to elect and defeat candidates,” and are often vehicles for corporate special interests. He is the only major candidate — defined here as anyone raising more than $100,000 — for federal office who is running without help from PACs, other than Connecticut’s GOP US Senate Linda McMahon, who is self-financing her election with tens of millions of dollars of her personal wealth. That means Yalamanchili is the only major candidate running for federal office who is both refusing to take PAC money and not financing his campaign out of his personal wealth.

Of course, standing on principle puts Yalamanchili at a significant financial disadvantage against his opponent Schmidt. Thanks to the deep pockets of special interests such as the American Bankers Association and Citigroup, Schmidt raised more funds from PAC money through September 30th than Yalamanchili has from individual donors. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets website illustrates the funding advantage that his opponent has:

Yet Yalamanchili does not regret standing up for the principle of clean elections. In an interview with ThinkProgress, the candidate told us, “Every politician running for office agrees on the need for reform in the financing of our elections. But nothing ever happens because these same politicians were elected through abusing that very process. I chose to turn away all special interest money because it’s the right thing to do on principle, it will allow me to work only for the people, and because I want to show future candidates a viable path to victory without selling out.”