A new proposal to improve the transparency of campaign finances in Ohio is as welcome as it is overdue.

Last week, Gov. Bob Taft and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell unveiled the measure, though doing so just as the General Assembly is breaking for the summer suggests that this is a political gesture, not a serious effort.

But it should be a serious effort. The governor promised to push for such reforms two years ago, and to date, there has been no reform. Political considerations, rather than a burning desire for campaign-finance rectitude, appear to be driving the sudden renewed interest.

As it heads toward November's general election, the Republican Party and its incumbent officeholders have a commanding position in the state. But the party recently has taken several serious hits, including allegations of campaign-finance shenanigans by State Treasurer Joseph T. Deters.

These money machinations, involving undisclosed contributions to the Hamilton County GOP's operating fund and subsequent payouts to the Deters campaign, apparently are legal but give off a very bad odor. That has given long-shot Democrats some unexpected campaign traction that the governor is eager to counteract.

But if the Republican Party really wants to drain the scandal of power, it must do more than talk about reform: It should act, and do so before Nov. 5.

The essence of the Taft-Blackwell proposal is to require that all contributions to state and county political parties be fully disclosed. This would include the party operating accounts that are at the heart of the Deters brouhaha.

Under current law, those who contribute to these funds, which are intended to pay salaries for party officers, support party-building efforts and cover upkeep of party offices, can do so anonymously and without limit.

In Deters' case, Democrats have cried foul because a number of financial brokers doing business with the state treasurer's office donated large amounts of money to the Hamilton County Republican Party operating account.

The party, in turn, donated large amounts to Deters' election campaign.

The appearance is that unregulated contributions that should have been used strictly for the Hamilton County party's noncampaign expenses were transferred to Deters' campaign. Even if the monies involved in the transaction came from separate funds and, therefore, were received and disbursed legally, the suspicion is that money-laundering was used to evade contribution limits and disclosure rules.

The Taft-Blackwell measure would require that all contributions to and expenditures from state and county political parties be disclosed. This would make party financial transactions transparent to voters.

The proposal would require political parties to report not only the names of contributors, but also each contributor's employer.

The measure also would require contribution and expenditure reports from any independent advocacy group that sponsors issue ads intended to influence an election. This is in response to the 2000 election, in which the Ohio Chamber of Commerce raised and spent $4 million from undisclosed contributors in a bid to defeat incumbent Democratic Supreme Court Justice Alice Robie Resnick. The effort failed while provoking an angry backlash against such anonymously supported negative-ad campaigns.

The Dispatch supports full disclosure of the funding of such independent advocacy campaigns in the belief that voters have a right to know who is speaking. But the newspaper recognizes that under current U.S. Supreme Court rulings, such a provision might not survive a constitutional challenge on free-speech grounds.

Whatever the outcome for that provision, the other major provisions outlined here are sound and should be enacted soon.

If Republican leaders think that merely talking about such reform now is sufficient to get them through Nov. 5 unscathed and that afterward they safely can ignore the issue again, they will be playing into the hands of Democrats.

With the problems involving Deters, the recent court decision undercutting the legitimacy of the state's $2-million-a-day school- building program, and the recurring problem of balancing the state budget, the Democrats' assertion that one-party rule is bad for Ohio is gaining credence.

Delaying campaign-finance reform a moment longer will bolster this argument.

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