Campaign reports filed Monday had important information for Kansas voters. They allowed voters not only to see how much money is being raised by candidates but where that money is coming from. In some cases, the numbers were telling, even surprising.

The problem is that more surprises may be in store during the closing days of the state’s election campaigns, but voters won’t be let in on those surprises until the next time campaign finance reports are due in January 2007.

The reports filed with the Kansas Government Ethics Commission on Monday covered campaign donations and expenditures through Oct. 26. Donations and expenditures during the last 11 days of the campaign won’t have to be reported until January.

In some campaigns, that information may not be particularly noteworthy, but the fact that one political action committee spent $1.5 million in nine days to influence a single statewide campaign shows the need for voters to have access to contribution information during the last 11 days before the election.

Political action committees, which are defined by Kansas law as groups that expressly advocate for or against a candidate, must register and report all donations and expenditures over $50 to the Government Ethics Commission. If they are contributing money to a candidate’s campaign, they are limited to $2,000 per candidate.

However, if a PAC doesn’t collaborate with a candidate but rather chooses to make independent expenditures to support that candidate – by buying its own television advertising or brochures, for instance – the PAC can sidestep the donation limit. It still has to report its donations and expenditures, but it can spend unlimited money expressly to support a candidate.

That’s how the Republican State Leadership Committee PAC, a Washington, D.C.-based group, was able to legally pour $1.5 million into an effort to support Atty. Gen. Phill Kline in his race against Johnson County Dist. Atty. Paul Morrison. Contributions came from one source, the Republican State Leadership Committee, and expenditures went directly to pay for advertising, not to the Kline campaign.

That information, along with other similar but smaller expenditures made before Oct. 26, is available to Kansas voters. Unfortunately, other similar expenditures could be made to influence state campaigns in the last 11 days before the election without voters’ knowledge.

It’s important for voters to be able to access and evaluate information on such last-minute campaign efforts. Legislation that would have closed the 11-day information gap was vetoed earlier this year by the governor because it included some troublesome provisions. Voters should demand that a clean bill aimed directly at late-campaign finance reporting be back on the legislative agenda in 2007.