Last week I wrote some pretty mean things about politicians and their penchant for being influenced by the largest campaign donor when it comes to policy decisions.

Bottom line is that I think there is way too much big money influence in today's politics.

To make that better, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a campaign finance reform bill called Shays-Meehan, named for the U.S. representatives who steered it successfully through the house.

Politicians say the bill:

• Will "change the architecture of American politics." (House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo.)

• Is 'an important step in restoring the public's confidence in our government.' (Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.)

• Would 'open the agenda for reform of Social Security, Medicare, pork-barrel spending and the military.' (Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.)

The big thing, according to the politicians, is that the bill bans unregulated soft money from federal campaigns.

The bill would leave in place the limits already set - 27 years ago - on hard money.

(Soft money is money that is given to political parties, not to any particular candidate. You can give all you want. Hard money is money that goes directly to individual candidates. You can give only $1,000.)

You could still give soft money to the party of your choice, it just couldn't be used in federal campaigns.

Funny thing is, your favorite political action committee goes unscathed in the bill, and none of our politicians are talking about that.

You see, most of the soft money in campaigns goes to challengers. Most contributions from PACs go to incumbents.

The bill, of course, leaves untouched many other trappings of incumbency that help politicians stay in office. Things like the franking privilege (free mailings), for example.

But probably the most troubling aspect of Shays-Meehan in my view is its overt attempt to suppress criticism of incumbents.

The bill bans the use of soft money in the final 30 days before a primary election or 60 days before a general election to buy so-called issue ads on TV or radio.

So basically we have a bunch of politicians who just voted to make it more difficult for citizens to criticize them.

And to make it more difficult for political parties and other independent groups to raise funds while making it easier for themselves.

Sounds like the campaign finance bill may have been mislabeled. Perhaps we should call it the incumbent defense bill.

But never mind all that. It's good for the American people, they tell us. I suppose it is, if your goal is to disengage the American people from the political process even more than they already are.

All of this is necessary because of the Enron debacle, the politicians tell us, even though nothing in this incumbent defense bill would have had even the remotest chance of preventing the Enron debacle.

Funny, isn't it, how somebody like McCain - who I generally like as politicians go - can accept thousands of dollars from Global Crossings while simultaneously saying it's corrupt for a political party to do the same.

Also funny how politicians know full well that some of the provisions in the bill are blatantly unconstitutional yet they vote for it anyway and figure, "Oh, well, the courts will sort out all that stuff later."

The bottom line is this.

Campaign finance reform, historically and in the present case, only tends to funnel the money through a different loophole.

As I see it, this latest attempt at reform is just another diversion. If this bill passes, within a short time, those interested in peddling influence will be peddling just as much influence as they were before.

You want campaign reform?

Here's campaign reform.

• Only individual U.S. citizens can donate money to politicians, candidates or political parties. There is no limit on how much they can donate as individuals. Corporations, unions, political action committees, or national organizations are all banned from giving money to a political party or a candidate. The right of free speech, in my view, is an individual right.

• Individual U.S. citizens can only give money to politicians or candidates who directly represent them. That means each American would be able to give money directly to the campaigns of one congressman, two senators and a president. Beyond that, they can give to the party of their choice.

• Political parties can do anything they want with their money.

• Corporations, unions, political action committees or national organizations can spend all the money they want on political ads anytime they want, in any medium they want. Individuals could buy ads, too. And so could candidates, of course. But all purchasers of ads must be clearly and prominently identified in the ad.

There. Let's do that and see what happens.

Could Mr. Billionaire make a $10 million dollar donation to one candidate or another? Sure, but the media furor over such a donation would probably preclude anyone accepting it. Who would want to be known as the politician that Mr. Billionaire bought? Besides, there aren't that many billionaires and most of them have much betting things to invest in.

Could Phillip Morris offer to buy a bunch of campaign ads in exchange for access to tobacco policy? Yes. But really, what politician would want to be featured in a bunch of easily identifiable tobacco company ads? Or National Rifle Association ads, or National Organization of Women ads, or National Right To Life ads?

And if they don't mind being inexorably linked to one or more of these organizations, fine. At least we know where they stand.

Could a rich guy buy his way into office? Sure, but the party of his opponent could intervene with an infusion of cash.

Could a group of people give money to one person who then could donate it to a candidate as an individual? No. That would be easy to track and we could make that illegal.

I'm sure somebody could pick apart my humble campaign finance reform package, but you know what? It sounds good to me.

And if I can come up with this in a half hour sitting around the newsroom, surely the guys in Washington could do even better.

Problem is, they just don't want to. [[In-content Ad]]