It’s been more than a month since Trayvon Martin was shot dead by George Zimmerman. (Get a full rundown of the facts of the case here.)

Tonight, ABC News release video footage of Zimmerman arriving at the police station. The video depicts a cleanly-shaven man who “shows no blood or bruises” on his body.

While media coverage of the case has been intense, there are several key questions that have yet to be answered about the case. Here are five of the most important:

1. What was the purported “conflict” that required the initial prosecutor to step down? On March 22 — after several weeks on the job — state attorney Norm Wolfinger stepped down from his role as prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin case. Wolfinger relinquished his post after meeting with Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi. He said it was necessary for him to step aside to preserve “the integrity of this investigation,” adding he wanted to avoid “the appearance of a conflict of interest.” He did not explain why his continued involvement would damage the integrity of the case or explain the potential conflict he was seeking to avoid. Did anyone at the prosecutor’s office know Zimmerman or his family? [Orlando Sentinel]

2. Why did the prosecutor ignore the recommendations of the lead homicide investigator? ABC News reported that Chris Serino, the lead homicide investigator on the Trayvon Martin case, recommended that Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter on the night of the shooting. Serino filed an affidavit that night stating “he was unconvinced Zimmerman’s version of events.” As the lead homicide investigator, Serino was: 1. In the best position to evaluate Zimmerman’s credibility, and 2. Intimately familiar with Florida law. Why was he ignored? [ABC News]

3. Why did then-Police Chief Bill Lee make public statements directly contradicting the official recommendations of the police department? On the day the Sanford Police concluded their investigation and handed over the case to the prosecutor, then-Police Chief Bill Lee stated publicly that there was no “probable cause” to arrest or charge Zimmerman. (Lee has subsequently “temporarily” stepped down from his post.) But the Miami Herald reports that on the same day the Sanford Police formally requested that the prosecutor charge Zimmerman, something known as a “capias” request. [ThinkProgress]

4. Who leaked Trayvon Martin’s school records? As public outrage increased, Zimmerman’s sympathizers launched a smear campaign against Trayvon Martin. This included details of several occasions where Martin was suspended for minor infractions (defacing a locker, possessing an empty “marijuana baggie.”) None of the information seemed to have any particular relevance to the night Trayvon Martin was shot to death. Was this a ham-handed attempt by the police or the prosecutor to defend their lack of action against Zimmerman? The Sanford City Manager announced he would launch an independent investigation into the source of the leak. [Miami Herald; NBC12]

5. Why was Trayvon Martin’s body tagged as a John Doe? The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart notes a police report “that was completed at 3:07 a.m. on Feb. 27 lists Trayvon’s full name, city of birth, address and phone number.” But yet, Trayvon’s body was reportedly “tagged as a John Doe” and his father wasn’t informed of his death until after he filed a missing person report later on the 27th. Why weren’t Trayvon Martin’s parents contacted immediately after the police confirmed his identity? [Washington Post]

Special prosecutor Angela Corey has promised to release additional information about the case once she makes a decision about whether to charge Zimmerman, something that could happen at any time.

The House of Representatives rejected an amendment last night that would have required that sponsors of independent political expenditure television and radio ads disclose the identity of donors whose contribute $10,000 or more to their efforts. The amendment to a Federal Communications Commission reform bill, offered by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), was defeated on a mostly party-line vote of 179 for to 238 against.

Eshoo explained the need for the amendment:

All Americans have a right to honest information about who has paid for the political messages they receive. This includes the sponsors of political advertisements—not just the names of sham entities designed to evade disclosure.

Americans are besieged by anonymous campaign ads around the clock this year. With disclosure and transparency, the public will be able to decide for themselves, because relevant information about the interests and their impact will be public. Disclosure of an ad’s major donors does not place any undue burdens on speech or industry. It will empower the voters.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, objected to the proposal complaining that it might have unintended consequences for public broadcasting sponsors and offered the bizarre justification that it would not require enough disclosure for elected officials. He lamented that the $10,000 threshold would mean voters would only see “a tiny little window” into who backed members of Congress (who are already subject to much stricter disclosure requirements under election law) and might be evaded by outside committees.

Five Republicans voted in favor of disclosure. They were:

Rep. Joe Barton (TX)

Rep. Walter Jones (NC)

Rep. Don Manzullo (IL)

Rep. Todd Russell Platts (PA)

Rep. CW Bill Young (FL)

Eight Democrats opposed the measure:

Rep. John Barrow (GA)

Rep. Dan Boren (OK)

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (CA)

Rep. Jim Cooper (TN)

Rep. Kathy Hochul (NY)

Rep. Collin Peterson (MN)

Rep. Kurt Schrader (OR)

Rep. Heath Shuler (NC)

All of the Democratic opponents except Hochul are members of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition, a group historically supportive of campaign finance reform. Reps. Cardoza, Cooper, Schrader, and Shuler all voted for the DISCLOSE Act in 2010, a measure which contained similar disclosure requirements, among other provisions.

Joe Oliver has inserted himself into the debate surrounding the murder of Trayvon Martin, making himself the public face of the defense of shooter George Zimmerman. Oliver, a former TV news anchor, has made dozens of media appearances in the past week to defend his “friend” Zimmerman’s character, dismiss allegations of racism, and note that the shooter has suffered himself from the public outcry.

Many have wondered why Oliver has stepped up, as his connection to Zimmerman is a bit murky, and as even he said on MSNBC last night, “my role in this just doesn’t make any sense.” The interview, with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and New York Times columnist Charles Blow, was tense and raised questions that Oliver didn’t seem comfortably answering.

But since he’s made himself a central figure in this ongoing controversy, it’s worth asking what we know about Joe Oliver:

1. Oliver first appeared this weekend and became a go-to guest for TV bookers literally overnight. Sitting out the controversy until Sunday, Oliver made the rounds of local TV news outlets that day and got a single mention on MSNBC, according to a search of media monitoring software. By Monday, he was everywhere, mentioned over 200 times and appearing on national cable news.

2. Oliver has been cagey about the apparent fact that the he and Zimmerman worked together. Zimmerman worked at a firm called Digital Risk, the company confirmed , and Oliver’s Linkedin page (which matches his known past employment) shows that he too worked at Digital Risk, during the same time period. A spokesperson for the company would not confirm the connection. But asked last night if they had “been in the same workplace,” Oliver cryptically replied, “I’m sure that information is out there, I know where he worked.” When O’Donnell said he had information that they worked together, Oliver replied, “If you’ve come across that information, then you have come across that information.”

3. Oliver initially said he was a good friend of Zimmerman’s, but told O’Donnell last night that they were merely “acquaintances.” He also said he had only briefly spoken to Zimmerman since Martin’s death, and only spoke to Zimmerman’s attorney this weekend, who apparently endorsed Oliver’s quest. He said he’s known Zimmerman for six years through the shooter’s mother-in-law, saying the two first met when Zimmerman started dating his now-wife.

4. Oliver has said he was unaware of Zimmerman’s past run-ins with the law, or that Zimmerman had gone through anger-management classes. Nor could he recognize Zimmerman’s voice from 911 calls, he’s said.

5. Oliver has offered bizarre defenses of Zimmerman, brushing off his alleged use of the racial slur “[expletive] coon” by saying that he actually said “goon” — “a term of endearment” — or alternately, that “coon” is not even a bad word.

Last night, Oliver said explicitly that his is not being paid, but it’s a bit unclear why he chose to insert himself. In another contentious interview with MSNBC this morning, Oliver said he inserted himself into the controversy, “Because I’m an African-American male and I understand the outrage.” “I understand enough about George to put myself in the crossfire,” he said. “I’m putting my own life on the line here.”

Indeed, while some critics have said O’Donnell and Blow “should be ashamed” of themselves for challenging Oliver, the man threw himself into a national political controversy knowing full well the dangers inherent with it — and no reason apparent at the moment.

It is probably not the case that the Supreme Court is poised to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act if it finds just one provision of it unconstitutional. Among other things, after conservative superlawyer Paul Clement spent nearly twenty minutes trying to convince a skeptical panel of judges that the whole law must fall, his conservative ally Justice Alito asked Clement a question no advocate ever wants to hear: “What would your fallback position be if we don’t accept the proposition that if the mandate is declared unconstitutional” the entire statute must fall? Apparently, even the Supreme Court’s right flank was considering other options besides Clement’s overreaching theory.

Unfortunately, however, the justices gave his proposal far more credit than it actually deserves. Under longstanding law, a court may not invalidate any constitutional part of a law unless it is “evident” that Congress would have preferred no law to some law. Yet the justices peppered the law’s defenders with uncertain questions about how they should proceed — with Scalia finally outright saying he would simply eliminate President Obama’s signature accomplishment altogether. Every single one of these questions were inappropriate. Given the exceedingly high presumption in favor of retaining as much of the law as possible, the justices must resolve any of their uncertainties in favor of the Affordable Care Act.

The Court’s conservatives did not get this. Worse, Justice Kennedy at one point seemed to suggest the Court’s duty was to resolve any uncertainties in favor of the insurance industry:

When you say judicial restraint, you are echoing the earlier premise that it increases the judicial power if the judiciary strikes down other provisions of the Act. I suggest to you it might be quite the opposite. We would be exercising the judicial power if one Act was — one provision was stricken and the others remained to impose a risk on insurance companies that Congress had never intended.

To be fair, it is not entirely clear how Kennedy’s fears cut, and as Lyle Denniston suggests, they could ultimately wind up saving the law. If Kennedy is genuinely concerned that any decision striking down the individual mandate will risk nuking the insurance industry, he could ultimately conclude that the least worst outcome is simply to uphold the entire law. Indeed, the problems created by trying to remove just one provision from a comprehensive economic regulatory scheme demonstrate the wisdom of a decision Kennedy previously joined saying that the justices should not generally be in the business of doing so.

If they ultimately decide to throw out the entire law, however, the result will be bedlam. Much of the Affordable Care Act has already taken effect, and cannot simply be stopped on a dime tomorrow:

• Stripping Young People of Care: At least 2.5 million young people now have insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. All of them would be cast back into the wilderness if the whole law were struck down.
• Blowing Up Medicare: Approximately 100 million Medicare claims are processed each month using a formula that was altered by the Affordable Care Act. If the entire law were struck down, new rates could not be calculated under the old, pre-ACA formula until after a rulemaking process that can take months before is completed. The result would be massive delays in payments to health providers throughout the country.
• Pulling The Rug Out On Retirees: The Affordable Care Act also provides thousands of Americans the opportunity to retire early and still remain insured until they become eligible for Medicare. Striking down the entire law could yank insurance away from many near-elderly Americans who retired solely because of the promise that the Affordable Care Act would be there for them.
• Ungrateful States: Many of the states that are currently challenging the law have nonetheless accepted millions of dollars worth of grants under the Affordable Care Act. If the law is struck down, it’s likely that this money would need to be returned immediately, further stressing already tight state budgets.

Simply put, today should have taught the justices a lesson. There is a reason why the Constitution leaves difficult questions of economic policy to elected officials and not to unelected judges. These choices are difficult, they are not easily unwound and they should be made by someone who actually has a mandate from the people to make them.

Last May, Florida radically overhauled its election law. In the name of preventing voter fraud, the bill slashed the early voting period nearly in half, shifted many voters to provisional ballots which often are never counted, and invalidated absentee ballots if the voter’s signature did not match official records.

Now, according to the New York Times, the law is already having an impact on voter registration, with the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote curtailing their efforts in the state. The law also requires third-party groups like those to submit registration cards within 48 hours of signature or pay a fine. Sabu Williams, the head of a local branch of the NAACP, experienced that part of the law firsthand during the past Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend:

Mr. Williams’s group registered two voters on the Sunday of the three-day weekend, and noted the time, as required by the law: 2:15 p.m. and 2:20 p.m. When the local elections office reopened on Tuesday, Jan. 17, the group handed the forms in. They were stamped as received at 3:53 p.m.

This resulted in a warning letter from Florida’s Secretary of State, Kurt S. Browning, who noted that the state can levy fines of $50 for each late application, with an annual cap of $1,000 in fines per group. “In your case, although the supervisor’s office was closed on Monday, Jan. 16, the 48-hour period ended for the two applications on Jan. 17 at 2:15 p.m. and 2:20 p.m.; therefore, the applications were untimely under the law,” Mr. Browning wrote. The letter said that “any future violation of the third-party voter registration law may result in my referral of the matter to the attorney general for an enforcement action.”

Mr. Williams said he could not believe it. “We’re out here trying to register voters, and I’m being threatened for doing it because we missed the time limit by around an hour — and we’re doing it on the first business day they were open!” he said. But he vowed to continue registering voters.

Not everyone, however, will follow suit. The League of Women Voters announced last year that it would halt its efforts in Florida if the bill became law, claiming an “undue burden on groups such as ours that work to register voters.” Heather Smith, Rock the Vote’s president, told the Times that, since high school teachers could be subject to fines under the law, “We just cannot put those high school teachers at risk.” While Gov. Rick Scott (R) said that he was only concerned whether the law “increase[d] the chance for people to stay active,” it is becoming obvious that this bill does the exact opposite.

Since parts of Florida are covered under the Voting Rights Act, the Department of Justice announced earlier this month that it would file a challenge to the law.

-Zachary Bernstein

The Miami Herald reports that the Sanford Police Department, at the conclusion of its Trayvon Martin investigation, recommended that the prosecutor file charges against the shooter George Zimmerman. Angela Corey, the special prosecutor now assigned to the case, confirmed the report:

“As far as the process I can tell you that the police went to the state attorney with a capias request, meaning: ‘We’re through with our investigation and here it is for you.’ The state attorney impaneled a grand jury, but before anything else could be done, the governor stepped in and asked us to pick it up in mid-stream.”

A capias is a request for charges to be filed.

State Attorney Norman R. Wolfinger, who was initially assigned the Trayvon Martin case, failed to act on the recommendation for charges against Zimmerman.

This new information directly contradicts the public statements that Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee (who has now “temporarily” stepped down) made on March 12, the day he turned the case over to the state attorney. He claimed that, at the time, there was not enough evidence to charge Zimmerman with a crime and arrest him:

Police Chief Bill Lee said there was not enough evidence to arrest George Zimmerman, who followed Martin in his SUV and ended up confronting the teen before shots were fired.

“In this case Mr. Zimmerman has made the statement of self-defense,” Lee said. “Until we can establish probable cause to dispute that, we don’t have the grounds to arrest him.”

These statements now do not appear to reflect the actual views of the Sanford Police, as communicated to the prosecutor. It only adds to the serious questions about the conduct of Lee and other members of the Sanford police in this case. While Lee was in charge of the Sanford Police, they did not test Zimmerman for drugs or alcohol, “corrected” a key witness, and amended the police report to bolster Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has made it clear he wants to push for a GOP-backed DREAM Act that would give undocumented students legal status — but not citizenship — and now Republicans hope to use this watered-down version of the bill to win support from Latino voters. Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) are also working on a bill like this, which is being kept under wraps and is expected to be unveiled if or when Mitt Romney wins the GOP presidential nomination.

Rubio told The Hill that he has nothing to announce about a non-citizenship DREAM Act, but said, “We’re working toward that and hopefully very soon.” While Rubio, Kyl, and Hutchinson are supposedly prepping a Republican plan, it’s worth noting that the original DREAM Act — to provide citizenship to undocumented students if they meet certain requirements — was a bipartisan plan that had support from GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch (UT) and John McCain (AZ).

Now if Rubio introduces the legal-status-only plan, it will likely be little more than posturing and doubtful to make it far because Republicans like Rep. Lamar Smith (TX), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, are categorically opposed to the DREAM Act and it is doubtful Democrats would support creating a permanent underclass of immigrants. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pointed out that Republicans have already opposed this measure too, which would impose a class system for immigrants:

At an event on Capitol Hill, Reid cautioned that if Republicans offer a new DREAM Act, it will be a watered-down version of the bill most Republicans opposed when it came up for a vote last year. [...]

[G]roups that advocate for immigrants are skeptical of reforms that fail to grant a path to citizenship.

“Any proposal that is put on the table as to the fate of these children, who are in all consideration American, should be measured by what place they’re going to have in our society,” said Clarissa Martinez, director of immigration at the National Council of La Raza.

Martinez said creating “a class of nation-less people” would not be good for the country.

Earlier this month in an interview with Geraldo Rivera, Rubio teetered between his opposition to the current DREAM Act, which would provide citizenship, and trying to lay out a plan that would appeal to Latinos. “You can legalize someone’s status in this country with a significant amount of certainty about their future without placing them on a path toward citizenship,” he argued.

But his plan would force potentially millions of undocumented students to become non-voting residents of their home country if they were only given legal status in the U.S. After the extremely anti-immigrant views that the Republican presidential candidates have staked out during the primaries, a plan to create a system of second-class citizenship is not likely to be what Latino voters are looking for from the Republican party.

In a panel yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling “a combination of arrogance, naivete, and stupidity, the likes of which I have never seen.” And he predicted scandals would come from the combination of unlimited corporate contributions and lack of disclosure for many independent expenditures:

McCain: I promise you this. I promise you there will be huge scandals… because there’s too much money washing around, too much of it… we don’t know who, who contributed it, and there is too much corruption associated with that kind of money. There will be major scandals.
Moderator: John McCain never gives up. That’s the legend. Are you gonna give up on this?
McCain: No. But I’ve got to wait until we think that can pass legislation. And I’m not sure right now, frankly, that we could get it passed.

Watch the video:

With a Republican House largely unconcerned about the issue and a Republican minority able to block legislation through filibuster, McCain is probably correct in his assessment of the prospects of a legislative fix in the current Congress.

But McCain deserves a large share of the blame for the secret money in our political system.

In 2010, after the high court ruled, McCain declared campaign finance reform dead and essentially washed his hands of the cause, telling CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “I don’t think there’s much that can be done.”

Without McCain’s help, Democrats created the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act. The bill — which sought to ban campaign expenditures by foreign-owned corporations and to require disclosure of the true sources of the money behind independent expenditures and electioneering communications — passed the House in June of 2010.

When the bill came to the Senate, McCain refused to back the measure. Decrying provisions in it as “a bailout for the unions,” McCain attacked the bill as tougher on corporations than unions.

On September 24, Democratic efforts to end a Republican filibuster of the measure failed by a single vote. All 59 Senate Democrats voted to end debate, McCain voted no. Rather than offering amendments to the bill or working behind the scenes with sponsors to reach an agreement, McCain was the deciding vote to kill the bill without even allowing an up-or-down vote.

Perhaps he feared a tough 2010 primary, but when there was a chance to do something about disclosure, McCain opted to stand with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the Chamber of Commerce rather than Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and the campaign finance reform movement. He has not even co-sponsored the disclosure-only DISCLOSE Act of 2012 introduced last week.

McCain’s grumbling comes as too little, too late and should be seen as what it is — little more than grandstanding.

ThinkProgress intern Zach Bernstein contributed to this report.