Federal campaign finance reforms come and go, while Pennsylvania remains in the dark ages on sensible contribution limits.

Despite obscene donations in the recent primary for state attorney general, the General Assembly is near-lifeless as a force for reform. Federal law limits individuals to contributions of $2,000 per candidate and political action committees to $5,000 in races for president, Senate and House, but in Pennsylvania the sky is the limit when donors want to underwrite a person running for state or local office.

That's why there was nothing to stop Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, who had sought the Republican nomination for attorney general, from taking more than $600,000 this year from Drew Lewis, former Republican national committeeman and Reagan Cabinet officer. That's why the eventual GOP nominee, Tom Corbett, also was free to accept more than $130,000 from former state party chairman Robert Asher.

A report Sunday by Post-Gazette staff writer Jeffrey Cohan showed, unfortunately, that change in Harrisburg is as elusive as ever. Common Cause Pennsylvania, the citizens' watchdog group, keeps pressing the issue, warning that unchecked campaign contributions can lead to favored access and undue influence in government -- but to no avail.

Thirty-eight of 50 states have gotten the message and, for the benefit of their citizens, have laws that cap the size of political donations. The public wants to know that candidates are not available to the highest bidder. They want to know that the law, by virtue of contribution limits, encourages candidates to seek financial support from a broad base of supporters.

West Virginia caps contributions to state candidates at $1,000 per donor. In Ohio, the limit is $2,500 per candidate. Pennsylvania, however, lets money speak as loudly and influentially as a check-writer would like.

Democrat Ed Rendell, for instance, received more $100,000 campaign contributions than all but two people who ran for office in the United States in 2002. An analysis by The Philadelphia Inquirer showed that at least 53 individuals and organizations gave at least $100,000 to the former Philadelphia mayor in his successful campaign, including $700,000 from the Philadelphia law firm Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll and its individual members and $528,000 from the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

No wonder reform-minded legislators like Sen. Allen Kukovich, Rep. David Levdansky and Rep. Greg Vitali can't find traction in the Capitol for perennial bills that would regulate campaign finance in Pennsylvania.

The state does not need a publicly funded system of election campaigns to bring sanity to political spending. What it needs, for starters, are sensible limits, like those in the federal system, on the size of contributions.

It is one thing for candidates to take advantage of loopholes in the law. But Pennsylvania fails its citizens by having no law at all.