In case you thought campaign season was over, Jim Holbert has begun to run for the 2010 Democratic nomination to represent Kentucky’s fifth congressional district.

The seat is currently held by Republican Hal Rogers. Holbert’s independent campaign for the seat in 2008 fared pretty well, though he did not unseat Kentucky’s longest serving representative. Holbert’s new campaign site will be up soon at HolbertforCongress.com.

Holbert has posted comments on H.R. 549, the Teacher Tax Relief Act of 2007, and S. 505, the Teacher Tax Relief Act of 2007, arguing that teachers should get a deduction of $2000 per year per teacher, due to the costs of computer equipment and other materials, which they often purchase directly out of pocket.

It’s good to see someone out there working for the betterment of the country as he sees it. It’s a little scary to realize that campaign 2010 is already underway!

Below are the votes on H.R. 549, the Teacher Tax Relief Act of 2007, and S. 505, the Teacher Tax Relief Act of 2007. Click to read Mr. Holbert’s comments, vote, comment yourself, learn more, or edit the wiki articles about the bills.

As I finished assembling the WashingtonWatch.com Digest for the week (see it here), I realized that the featured laws represent an interesting cross-section of things the federal government does - though not nearly all of it, of course.

Take Public Law 110-315, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007. This is mostly about redistributing wealth. The $1,200 in spending per U.S. family is mostly intended to go toward getting young people through college.

Does it actually get there? Not so sure. And does it go from, say, people who have plenty of money to people in need? Doubtful. This looks like classic middle-class entitlement legislation. Feel free to blast me in the comments if you think it’s not.

Then there’s Public Law 110-314, the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act. It’s a classic example of public health and safety regulation.

Does it do the job and cost-effectively make us safer? There’s often more to the story, as regulatory agencies can be captured by the companies they regulate. But at thirty cents or so per U.S. family (and whatever costs might be imposed by the regulations - which are very hard to determine), it’s hard to complain about this one compared to one costing $1,200.

Finally, Public Law 110-316, the Animal Drug User Fee Amendments of 2008. This is also health and safety regulation. But . . . it’s about the health and safety of animals.

A buck-fifty per family isn’t a lot, but how many buck-fifty programs at the outer edge or beyond the federal government’s real responsibility are you willing to support? It’s stuff like animal drug regulation that we created the Jack of All Trades - Master of None category for.

WashingtonWatch.com isn’t going to make you an expert on every bill in Congress, but perhaps you’ll be in a better position to make a few judgments about what you like and don’t like. Keep watching.

H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2008, was passed in the House of Representatives in February and passed the Senate last week. It has been presented to the President, who is expected to sign it any minute now.

According to the number-crunching we’ve done using government estimates, implementing the bill will cost the average U.S. family a little over $1,200.

It’s hard to call a big bill like this simply “good” or “bad.” A lot of different folks have something to say about specific pieces of it, though.

Here’s Carnegie Learning, Inc., for example, telling us what’s good in the bill:

Among its many provisions, [the bill] requires that education textbook publishers provide unbundled alternatives to textbooks sold shrink-wrapped or “kitted” with additional materials such as software, pass-codes, or workbooks. The bill has the potential to drive down the cost of academic materials by requiring publishers to disclose the availability of these alternatives, and to price and sell components separately so that costs per item are transparent to instructors and students.

Carnegie sees some money to be made. Good for them. Maybe good for students. Maybe not so good for textbook publishers.

On the other hand, tech news outlet Ars Technica reports on something negative, or at least controversial, in the bill:

The Senate and House . . . approved controversial new provisions that will require universities to provide students with access to commercial music downloading services and implement traffic filtering technologies in order to deter peer-to-peer filesharing. . . . These provisions have strong support from the content industry, but have been targeted with widespread criticism from the academic community and advocacy groups such as Educause.

These are just a couple of provisions in this 431-page bill.

So, whaddya say? Good or bad? Would you have voted Yes or No? (The votes in the House and Senate will go up just as soon as the President signs the bill into law.)

Here’s the current vote on the bill. It stays open through the rest of this Congress, even though the bill has passed. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article for the bill.