We've got a few candidates (four in total) running in Illinois and this little tidbit of news caught my eye today.

After years of languishing in the Illinois legislature, a campaign finance law that would limit pay-to-play politics is moving rapidly. The Senate could vote this week on House Bill 824. Its key provision bans people or businesses that do $50,000 or more in business with the state from donating to the campaign of the official who controls the contract. In other words, it's designed to stop the kind of influence peddling that allegedly has occurred in Gov. Rod Blagojeivich's administration.

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These are baby steps. We need giant leaps forward. Even Governor Blagojevich has hinted at vetoing the bill, saying it doesn't go far enough in instituting real reform. This is ironic coming from the elected official who's "pay-to-play" allegations are what triggered the bill initially. Whether its a stalling tactic to "protect a practice at the core of [his] unprecedented fundraising success," is debatable.

Meanwhile, the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (non-partisan) says "the reform community is encouraged" by the new legislation. Supporting organizations supporters include Citizen Action Illinois, the Better Government Association, the Citizen Advocacy Center, Common Cause Illinois, Illinois PIRG, the League of Women Voters of Illinois and Protestants for the Common Good.

Hopefully, this will lead to more action on campaign finance reform within Illinois and will trickle up. If it doesn't, this type of legislation won't keep people from finding loopholes in the near future. Illinois has to build off of this, as we all do.

Republican reformer and past Speaker of the House Newt Gingerich called for a one year moratorium on earmarks as part of his plan to get his party back on track. Actually, its not so much a plan as much as a "plea." But, its worth looking at.

His fourth of "Nine Acts of Real Change" highlights the earmark issue.

Establish an earmark moratorium for one year and pledge to uphold the presidential veto of bills with earmarks through the end of 2009. The American people are fed up with politicians spending their money. They currently believe both parties are equally bad. This is a real opportunity to show the difference.

While we're glad that earmarks made the list, I was hoping that more of the acts would include serious campaign finance reform goals and efforts. We know that Newt is not a big fan of the McCain-Feingold legislation and thinks it should be repealed because it limits the personal freedoms of voters. But the one-year moratorium proposition, as Ellen Miller pointed out in our discussions on the Google Group, is easy to jump behind due to the dirth of other publicized solutions. In the end, she says"proposals for reform have to be realistic. (Yes, they can be idealistic and realistic at the same time.)" While many Republicans, including Gingrich, feel that a one-year moratorium is realistic, many disagree. The fact is, there are fewo solutions being presented so naturally, the one that has gained in popularity, the one-year moratorium, receives the most attention and support.

The issue is not so much whether earmarks should be banned. If that is the goal, are we willing to hand over the decisions on who gets what federal money to the executive branch? Congress would never hand the government money clip over to White House administration officials, not just because they fear losing "the power of the purse," but because they understand that a representative from a district probably has a better idea of what the district needs are compared to an unelected appointee sitting in Washington. Well, we all hope they do anyway.

The issue is whether we can reform the earmark process to limit the corruption oozing from the halls of Congress, especially over the last decade. David Sirota, who worked for the Appropriations Committee, presented two possible starting points on the conundrum of earmark corruption:

1. Don't let the spenders also be the directors. Separate the group of lawmakers that approve spending from the ones that decide how to spend that money. Granted, this is how the process was originally setup but it has (obviously) broken down.

2. Full disclosure on all earmarks. Require full disclosure on all earmarks so that the public and other lawmakers have time to review all of them and know which member of Congress is responsible for each. This will help limit the phantom earmarks that appear at the last moment in bills about to be passed.

I think these are excellent points but am interested to know what others think about them.

Change Congress' own Jim Cooper of Tennessee was interviewed on Nashville's Liberadio Show and talked about the earmark conundrum and the important issues that the Change Congress community is working on. Congressman Cooper took pledges two through four and was the first member of Congress to sign on.

Those of you in the Tennessee Fightin' Fifth (and anyone else that would like to) let Jim know that you support his effort to fully support public campaigns, reform the earmark process and stand up for transparency in our government.