Campaign laws should protect voters, not political agendas.

It is, perhaps, too much to expect a group of partisan lawmakers to put the interests of voters ahead of election politics, but it’s disappointing to see Kansas legislators going out of their way to try to withhold campaign information that Kansans need to make intelligent voting decisions.

Having received a number of complaints leading up to the November election, the Kansas Ethics Commission this year recommended several campaign reforms aimed at providing Kansans with timely information about the origin and financing of advertisements, phone calls and other tactics used in political campaigns.

A bill that includes three important measures still is alive in the Legislature and could be revived during the wrap-up session later this month. It would:

l require identification of those sponsoring phone messages that call for the election or defeat of a candidate;

l require campaign contributions over $300 made in the last 11 days of the campaign to be reported within two days so that information could be shared with voters; and

l allow officeholders to transfer campaign funds from one race to another if they decide to seek another office rather than seek re-election to their current office.

All of these are good measures, and hopefully will move forward. However, another important reform bill that would have required issue advocacy campaigns to report how much they spend and raise and who is giving them money is being held up in the Kansas Legislature.

This bill is of special interest to Lawrence voters who recently witnessed an unscrupulous post card attack on one of the Lawrence City Commission candidates. Because groups that provide information (a term that hardly applies to the deceptive local post cards) but don’t expressly support or oppose a candidate are exempt from campaign reporting requirements, information on who financed or sent the post cards may never be revealed.

A bill that would have closed this reporting loophole is stuck in a Senate committee where it is heavily opposed by conservative Republicans. An effort to amend the measure into a bill on the House floor was stymied by House Speaker Doug Mays, also a conservative Republican, who said this is “an issue for another session.”

On the contrary, this is the perfect time to deal with this issue. The next legislative session will be a run-up to the 2006 election when House members will face re-election and will be unlikely to consider any campaign reform. A possible motivation is that Mays simply wants to stall indefinitely a reporting requirement for advocacy groups such as the conservative Americans for Prosperity and other special interest groups that have poured considerable money into Kansas campaigns.

Campaign laws shouldn’t be about politics, about giving Democrats the advantage over Republicans or conservatives the advantage over liberals or moderates. They should be about giving voters the most complete, factual information possible about candidates and their campaigns. Who is putting out campaign material and who is paying for it can be an important factor in an election race, and voters should have information that is as current as possible.

It’s not about strategy; it’s about not hiding information that voters should be allowed to access and evaluate. Any group or candidate that’s afraid to reveal its funding sources shouldn’t be involved in Kansas campaigns. Kansas voters should hold legislators accountable for their votes to either hide or reveal important campaign information.