Demand tightening of money spigot

It's time to sound the alarm again. About six weeks ago, Gov. Pat Quinn stood with the top legislative leaders and vetoed a flawed bill that made a lame attempt to limit some campaign donations. They pledged to work with groups demanding real limits to bring a bill for a vote this fall.

House Speaker Michael J. Madigan's representatives appeared Thursday at a reform coalition's news conference to say he'd allow a campaign funding bill to get a hearing next Wednesday, but it is missing the main change that matters.

The plan Madigan will allow to be heard does not limit the money he and the three other legislative leaders can give to their candidates.

Madigan's people said candidates need to be free to accept unlimited funding from their leaders "to protect them from attacks by special interests and defend them against smear campaigns from unregulated out-of-state groups."

What a canard. If that's a legitimate concern, then restrict those groups by law too.

What's really happening here is that Madigan, Democratic Senate President John Cullerton, Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno and House Republican Leader Tom Cross refuse to diminish the sway they hold over their rank-and-file candidates.

The plain truth is that we will not have a chance at real representative government until that sway is diminished dramatically. The four legislative leaders funnel huge sums to candidates in a handful of tight races each election, and those candidates naturally feel beholden to their biggest benefactors, who are not their constituents. As we noted here before, Democratic state Rep. Mark Walker of Arlington Heights got 69 percent of his campaign money from Madigan last fall, while his GOP opponent, Christine Prochno of Elk Grove Village, got 54 percent of her in-kind donations from Cross.

Change Illinois!, the coalition still fighting admirably for restrictions on leadership and political party contributions, noted Thursday that $1 out of every $4 raised by candidates in the 2008 general election came from the four leaders and their political party funds. In the most competitive races, $1 out of every $2 comes from the leaders and the parties.

This must stop. The silent majority must speak.

Unless we all rebel and pressure those who profess to be our public servants now, we'll continue to get a state government of the few, by the few, and for the few too powerful.

Call your legislators. Tell them you want political party and leaders' donations limited to $30,000 per election. You can find your legislators' contact information here, or call the reform coalition's hotline at (800) 719-3020. To borrow from Mahatma Gandhi, we have to be the change we want to see in Illinois.