Chicago Tribune Editorial: Don't call this 'reform'

Chicago Tribune Editorial: Don't call this 'reform'
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
October 29, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/chi-1029edit1oct29,0,3956589.story


Reform is a word that rolls off the tongue easily. Ask Gov. Pat Quinn, who spent most of his life demanding it and most of this year promising it. Ask Illinois legislators, who are dying to claim credit for it.

Will they deliver it?

Quinn and the legislators have staked their credibility on a bill meant to curb the influence of campaign contributions on government. With two days left in the veto session, they're all but settled on a proposal that would limit how much a candidate could take from individuals, corporations, unions and other groups, but with no such limits on contributions from party leaders.

They want to sell it as a better-than-nothing bill, but it isn't. It would be worse than the unregulated status quo. A measure that limits contributions from some groups and not from others doesn't level the playing field. It gives those without caps a huge advantage.

Party and caucus leaders in Illinois already exert far too much control over rank-and-file legislators, largely because of their ability to bankroll campaigns. They don't want to surrender that power, though they insist it's imaginary -- even as their members obediently toe the party line in Springfield, vote after vote after vote.

To appease the watchdog groups who insist on capping campaign contributions, lawmakers have offered to limit party spending in primaries, where they generally spend very little money anyway.

This might qualify as compromise, but it's not reform.

It only underscores the folly of trying to limit campaign contributions. Every set of rules creates a different set of winners and losers and a different set of loopholes for politicians to navigate around. The public interest is best served not by capping contributions, but by enforcing strict disclosure laws to ensure the money changes hands in broad daylight.

Over the last few years, Illinois voters have been well schooled about the connections between campaign cash and political favors. Campaign contributions influence everything from who gets state jobs or contracts to whose kids get clouted into college.

Much of this has been revealed in criminal proceedings against elected officials and their cronies. But it also comes to light through the efforts of reporters and watchdogs who mine campaign finance reports for evidence of pay-to-play. That's why full and prompt disclosure of campaign contributions is essential to any reform measure. Unfortunately, the language we've seen so far offers too many ways to game the system, and the enforcement provisions do little to discourage it.

Once again we ask, where has Pat Quinn been? The last time he let lawmakers write the definition of reform for him, it bit him in the pants: The campaign finance bill passed last spring was a phony, and voters made it clear they weren't fooled. The governor did an about-face and, embarrassed, vetoed it.

Quinn could have set the bar this time by making clear what he would and wouldn't sign, but he ducked. As recently as Tuesday he would say only that he wants to "put the people back in politics in Illinois and take big money out of it."

Quinn wouldn't say whether the current bill would accomplish that, but we will.

It doesn't.