Editorial: Finish the job on campaign reform

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

For a political system that is supposed to operate with checks and balances, Illinois has too many big money checks and not enough balance.

We’re referring to a loophole in campaign finance reform enacted last year that limits private donations and primary-election spending, but that lets state parties and legislative leaders dole out all the money they want to favored candidates in general elections.

Most legislative districts are either safely Republican or safely Democratic, so the heavy spending tends to be concentrated in perhaps a dozen Senate districts and a couple of dozen House districts. Spending by both sides in those districts sometimes tops $1 million.

Ideally, support for candidates in a state legislative race should come from people living in the district. But as the law now stands, only the state parties and legislative leaders —through their political action committees —may donate unlimited amounts. Everyone else is relegated to the sidelines in what amounts to proxy wars between the state’s top politicians.

That’s why the Legislature should advance two bills supported by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform — one in the Senate and one in the House — that would cap donations from political parties and legislative leaders in general elections. The limits would be set at $300,000 for a statewide race and $85,000 for individual House and Senate candidates. House Minority Leader Tom Cross is backing a separate bill that would set even lower limits.

The limits are an essential companion to reforms enacted last year that placed caps on everyone else, such as unions and ordinary individuals. Without these additional limits, more power simply flows to the state’s legislative leaders.

The deadline to get the bills out of committee is Thursday, although in Springfield — where no bill ever is truly dead — various techniques can be used to revive legislation at a later date. Still, the deadline presents an opportunity to show that the Legislature is serious about campaign finance reform.

In the past, House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton have opposed any limits, arguing that political parties exist for the very purpose of backing like-minded candidates and that imposing caps would hurt the parties.

Also, opponents of the cap argue that placing limits on donations would simply shift spending to numerous special-interest groups, some of them operating in the shadows, and that the door would be opened to a wave of wealthy, self-funded candidates.

But records show that last year most of the money for the hotly contested races came from legislative leaders and political parties. The Campaign for Political Reform reports that spending by parties and leaders in 19 high-spending races totaled more than $15.4 million — 63 percent of the total outlays.

That gives the legislative leaders too much control over the rank and file. If lawmakers don’t follow the party line, they might well see the cash flow turned off for their next race. No one in a tough race can afford to see 63 percent of his or her funding vanish. As a result, decision-making is concentrated in the hands of the General Assembly’s four leaders behind closed doors.

The rank and file legislators have a chance to get things back out in the open. They should act on it.