From the SJ-R (Editorial):

Our Opinion: Take a simple approach to ethics reform
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Sep 28, 2008 @ 12:07 AM
IN FEBRUARY 2005, Comptroller Dan Hynes and a bipartisan group of lawmakers announced the Government Integrity Initiative — a package of legislation that would, among other things, prohibit holders of state contracts worth $25,000 or more from contributing to the campaigns of the official letting the contract.
It took more than three years — until last week — to get a less stringent version of that original proposal onto the books. Yet, if the Senate was sincere in its actions on Tuesday, now there appears to be a stampede to pass more ethics reform. No sooner had it passed HB 824 — which prohibits holders of state contracts of $50,000 or more from contributing to the campaigns of the officials who grant them — than it also passed a bill loaded with much broader restrictions.
We’re all for that, of course. But rather than the hodge-podge of new rules written by the governor and packaged into Senate Bill 780, we suggest a simpler start to the cleanup process.
IF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY really wants to keep this ethics ball rolling, it ought to start at the ground level by joining the vast majority of states that have placed limits on personal campaign contributions and contributions by political action committees, corporations or unions. Illinois is one of only five states that has no such limits.
Increasingly, this has led to high-dollar donors becoming the dominant forces in campaign funding. According the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, statewide candidates now get most of their funds from fewer than 5 percent of their contributors. The potential for corruption there is obvious — a candidate dependent on a handful of huge donors may want to reward those treasured few.
There’s also an ancillary effect of the richest 5 percent having the lion’s share of influence. It makes regular folks feel like their $50 or $100 is useless, overshadowed by the $25,000 donations from big shots with whom the candidates are on a first-name basis. So they step away from the political process. Ceding control to a moneyed few does not, in our opinion, foster government that is responsive to the masses.
Some states go so far as offering tax credits or matching funds to encourage small donations. Many states also prohibit or sharply limit the amount that can be donated by political action committees, corporations and unions. The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform advocates an all-out ban on corporate, PAC and union donations.
“People vote. People are governed, not entities,” says Cindi Canary, ICPR executive director.
We doubt an all-out ban would be politically feasible in Illinois, nor are we convinced that complete financial exclusion is warranted.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
THE FEDERAL LIMIT on personal campaign donations to individual candidates is $2,300, and we think Illinois politics would benefit mightily from a limit around that figure.
And unlike the far-reaching measures penned by Blagojevich and stuffed into the bill passed by the Senate last week, which we believe invite a court challenge if passed into law, such a limit comes backed by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in its favor.
And lo and behold, there is already a bill in the Illinois House that would do all those things. It’s House Bill 3497. You haven’t heard much about because it’s been languishing in the House Rules Committee since March 2007, having been introduced a month earlier.
If the General Assembly is truly serious about ethics reform, the House can prove it by acting on this bill when it reconvenes next year.