SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - An Illinois House committee minutes ago passed a campaign-reform measure that would limit individual donations to a candidate to $5,000, and companies and unions to $10,000. But it’s already drawing the ire of reformers who say it’s another inadequate measure for a state in need of a major ethics overhaul.

This was supposed to replace the legislation that collapsed earlier this year because reformers thought it was too protective of a handful of top party leaders in Springfield. That earlier bill would have allowed those leaders to give up to $90,000 to individual candidates, while placing tighter limits on everyone else. 

So those leaders had agreed to go back to the drawing board - and now have come back with a bill that allows those leaders to continue giving unlimited money to individual candidates, while placing tighter limits on everyone else.

House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, testifying in defense of the bill, brushed aside the suggestion that the new version goes in the wrong direction. He argued the whole point of a political party is to support its candidates.

“What is a political party supposed to do?” Madigan asked during his testimony before the House Executive committee. “Why is there this thing called  a political party?”

The reform group Change Illinois argues that if leaders like Madigan aren’t limited in how much they can give to rank-and-file politicians, they effectively control those politicians.

The new legislation “restricts everybody but the leaders,” Peter Bensinger of Change Illinois testified. “We don’t think (this measure) restores the public trust.”

All of this was spurred by the federal arrest last year of ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich - and the conviction, before him, of ex-Gov. George Ryan - on corruption charges related largely to the state’s unlimited campaign contribution system, which critics say invites bribery.

The measure advanced to the full House on a 7-4 vote.