Perhaps a decision by the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission will help local residents get the information they deserve concerning a postcard mailing aimed at influencing this month’s Lawrence City Commission election.

Initial indications were that those who sent out a postcard with a report-card type rating of commission candidates had skirted the state’s campaign reporting requirements. According to state law, groups or individuals that distribute information based on issues don’t have to file financial reports with the state. Such reports are only required for groups that advocate for or against specific candidates.

On Thursday, the state Governmental Ethics Commission unanimously ruled that the local postcard, which named all five commission candidates and declared that City Commissioner David Schauner was “failing” the city’s youth, was more than “issue advocacy.” The letter grades given on the postcard, the commission said, amounted to an endorsement of three commission candidates and an indictment of Schauner.

On that basis, the “Teachers for A Better Lawrence,” the sponsoring group identified on the card, is required by law to report how much money it raised and spent in its campaign effort.

That’s good news for Lawrence voters, many of whom were chagrined by the underhanded nature of the card and two others that arrived in local mailboxes just a few days before the April 5 election. Regardless of who they supported in the election, all voters should be offended by such tactics, especially when they come from anonymous sources.

According to the state ethics commission, that anonymity now should be broken, but enforcing that judgment may not be easy. Although Mike Capra, a local plumber, had admitted to the Journal-World that he was involved in distributing the postcard, he refused to comment on the ethics commission decision.

It seems unlikely that Capra or anyone else connected with the postcard will voluntarily step forward to provide information to comply with the state law. Nonetheless, the state ethics officials should have the full support of Lawrence officials and residents in their efforts to extract information on the postcards in question.

This case also points out the need to toughen state laws on campaign reporting. A measure that would have required groups practicing “issue advocacy” to comply with the same financial reporting requirements as those speaking for or against candidates failed to clear the Kansas Legislature this year. Some state legislators may have a political interest in preserving the anonymity of issue advocacy groups, but Kansans should insist that the state pursue a reporting measure that serves voters, not politics.