Here's why reports are required within 48 hours of last-minute contributions for the final week or so before the election: Because it's after the last campaign finance reporting period, and otherwise, no one would know about any of it until after the election. The pre-primary campaign finance report for Idaho legislative races in the May 15 primary is due on Tuesday, covering the period from Jan. 1 through April 29. Contributions of $1,000 or more after that reporting period, from April 30 to May 13, must be reported with 48-hour reports.

Some candidates already have begun filing their pre-primary reports; you can see them here. Among those whose reports are in: Sen. Steve Vick, R-Dalton Gardens, whose nearly $13,000 in contributions included $1,000 from Rep. Bob Nonini's Idaho Association for Good Government PAC, $500 from Lorna Finman and $250 from former state Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake; and Vick's challenger, former Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, whose $12,000 in contributions included $1,000 from the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, $1,000 from Avondale Dental Center in Hayden, and $300 from Lake City Ford.

Among today's 48-hour reports, the Northwest Grocery Association PAC donated $1,000 apiece to eight Idaho incumbents: Sens. Keough and Winder; and Reps. Anderson, Eskridge, Moyle, Perry, Rusche and VanderWoude. Four incumbents and one newcomer got $1,000 donations from MIEC PAC, which advocates for tort reform in malpractice claims against doctors: Sens. Keough and Cameron,  Reps. Hagedorn and Thompson, and Ronald Lechelt, a Republican seeking an open House seat in District 33. Micron handed out seven $1,000 donations to Reps. Denney, Hagedorn, and Raybould and Sens. Brackett, Tippets, Davis, and Hill.

Today's latest reports also show that the Idaho Prosperity Fund, affiliated with the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry business lobbying group, has mounted two more independent expenditure campaigns in legislative races: It spent $1,900 on a mailing and advertising in support of District 1 GOP incumbents Anderson, Keough and Eskridge; and $3,500 on a mailing and advertising on behalf of Sen. John Tippets, R-Bennington, who faces a primary challenge from R. Scott Workman of Preston. That's in addition to the group's earlier expenditures on behalf of Sen. Bert Brackett, R-Rogerson, who's facing off with fellow GOP Sen. Tim Corder of Mountain Home.