In Illinois reform begets corruption

The Illinois State legislature recently passed a campaign finance reform bill. Some discussion of this bill can be found in this Chicago Tribune article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-campaign-finance-sundaynov01,0,4798276.story

The new law places restrictions on campaign spending:

• The proposal would limit donations to candidates to $5,000 each for the primary and general elections from individuals, $10,000 from corporations and unions and $50,000 from political action committees.
  

This sounds like real reform but the following section of the law reveals its true intention:

• Madigan and Cullerton -- as well as reluctant Republican leaders, Sen. Christine Radogno of Lemont and Rep. Tom Cross of Oswego -- would be allowed to spend unlimited sums of money from their special leadership campaign accounts on individual legislators or candidates in highly competitive general election races.
  Since Madigan also serves as state Democratic chairman, he also could devote unlimited party campaign resources to the dozen or so targeted legislative races that are the true battleground contests.
  

This new law which was written and approved by the State’s legislative leaders will now magnify their power over candidates in future elections. Under the current system a candidate must pander to the legislative leaders to receive their endorsement. Currently if a candidate does not receive the support and endorsement of the party elite that candidate can still go out raise funds and run against the parties' selected candidate. With the new law the independent or renegade candidate who is not baptized by the “machine” will no longer be able to raise enough money to mount a viable campaign. This will lock in the “machine” politicians and build legions of candidates beholden to them.

There is a moral to learn from this sad situation. Campaign reform laws are all written by entrenched politicians. These politicians will fashion the reform law so as to enhance their own political careers. This is one reason that incumbents win reelection 95% of the time.