In the series of Pink Panther movies, Inspector Clouseau, played by Peter Sellers, keeps in shape for jousting with crooks by encouraging Kato, his houseboy, to test him.

In one film, Kato, with an appropriate war whoop, pounces on Clouseau, taking him by surprise. "Not now, you idiot!'' Clouseau exclaims. "This is not the time or the place!''

But when Kato releases him and turns his back, Clouseau rushes over and tackles him. "Now is the time and the place!'' he shouts triumphantly.

And so it was last week with Gov. Bob Taft and Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who came out with a plan to plug two gaping loopholes in the campaign-finance law that Republicans have driven trucks through for at least two years.

The Republicans have preached for years that limiting contributions or expenditures is not the way to stop the undue influence of money on campaigns. Rather, they say, it's disclosure, disclosure, disclosure.

Yet they have resisted requiring the identity of the sources of political-party operating funds or the sources of money that independent committees use to run issue- oriented campaigns against officeholders without advocating their defeat.

Somehow, in a Clouseau-like way, last week was both the time and the place for Taft and Blackwell to suddenly denounce the secrecy and propose a plan to fix it.

How conve-e-e-e-e-enient -- right in the middle of an election campaign, when it's too late to change the rules and there's about as much chance that the Republicans will lose as there is that it will snow today in Columbus.

Both Taft and Blackwell said they have been working behind the scenes with Republican legislative leaders to get just the right language to make public the sources of money without compromising what the independent committees regard as free speech -- the right to call somebody names and then run to a hiding place and slam the door.

The GOP leaders couldn't recall hearing much discussion about the proposal. In fact, Senate President Richard H. Finan of Cincinnati doesn't much like it. He says when people have to put their name on a donation, it sometimes scares them off.

"If they give money to me, they get solicited by everybody in Ohio,'' Finan said.

Since the disclosure plan has to go through the Senate, it doesn't seem to have much of a chance. The Senate is on vacation until September. Even after that, the sessions will be few and far between unless the state budget goes south again or the Ohio Supreme Court orders lawmakers for the fourth time to come back and fix school- funding.

Finan will be gone after this year, the victim of term limits, so other senators will be dealing with the Taft-Blackwell proposal.

Of course, by then, the election will be over and Taft and Blackwell probably will have survived.

In fairness to Blackwell, he proposed legislation in 2000 to require disclosure of political-party operating funds, and he called for the disclosure of the sources of money for independent expenditures after the 2000 election.

Still, it was the end of March 2002 before the top state Republicans got serious about disclosure. The timing suggests that the sudden activity is for cosmetic purposes during the 2002 campaign.

"These things take time,'' said Carlo LoParo, an aide to Blackwell, explaining the delay in advancing the proposal. He said action in Washington on campaign-finance reform "gives us a window of opportunity at the state level.''

The flap over party operating funds came earlier this year when it was revealed that money was funneled through the Hamilton County Republican Party to the campaign committee of State Treasurer Joseph T. Deters so the sources couldn't be traced.

The flap over independent expenditures came to a head in 2000, when a committee formed by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce laid down a barrage against Justice Alice Robie Resnick of the Ohio Supreme Court. The committee did not have to make its finances public because it never called for her defeat at the polls.

Blackwell and Taft seem to have come up with some reasonable disclosure language, walking a legal tightrope in requiring the bankrollers of independent ads to identify themselves.

Currently, disclosure only applies to a group advocating for or against a candidate or issue. Under Blackwell-Taft, disclosure would apply if a mass-media ad even mentions within 60 days before an election a candidate or issue that is on the ballot.

Chamber types say that's still an infringement on free speech, and you can expect another indirect attack this year, probably in a Supreme Court contest.

Blackwell-Taft has a long way to go.

Lee Leonard covers the Statehouse for The Dispatch.

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