In almost every piece of controversial legislation, there has to be compromise.

That's undoubtedly what happened last week to a bill changing campaign finance laws in the state of Illinois. The question is: Did the compromise go too far?

The bill, which was approved by the House and Senate and likely will be signed by Gov. Pat Quinn, contains some important reforms.

But it stops short of the reform that was most needed: lessening the impact of powerful political party contributions in local legislative races. These political party contributions are controlled by legislative leaders who collect huge war chests and then use that money in selected legislative races. The problem with the process is that the money often comes with strings attached.

The bill approved last week limits the amount political parties can contribute to candidates in primary elections, but it does not set any limit on what the political parties can contribute in a general election. Supporters of the bill argue that in many districts in Illinois, the primary election determines the winner and that many legislative races are uncontested in the general election. That's true, but it's a chicken-and-egg question; if the rules gave less favor to incumbents, there would be more challengers.

The bill does have some good reforms. Every contribution of $1,000 or more has to be reported quickly, and campaign committees will have to submit quarterly reports instead of semiannual ones. In addition, there will be random audits of campaign committees, and the Illinois State Board of Elections will have to develop a searchable database of campaign contribution violations.

ChangeIllinois, which is a coalition of civic, business, labor and other groups interested in reforming Illinois government, agreed to the compromise legislation and said it is a first step. The coalition promised to continue work on limited political party contributions and other issues such as redistricting.

ChangeIllinois negotiated with legislative leaders for several months on the campaign contribution reform bill and said they felt it was better to approve this bill than to risk having no reforms approved.

That may be, although it is disappointing that the final step of limiting political party contributions wasn't reached. It remains to be seen whether ChangeIllinois and other reformers can convince legislators to take another look at this issue. Legislative leaders probably will be more than happy to call the bill they passed last week reform and move on.

Illinois taxpayers can, however, keep this issue alive. They can tell legislators and candidates that they won't be satisfied until the impact of political party contributions is diminished. Voters can make candidates promise not to accept such tainted money and then hold candidates to that promise.

In that way, the legislation approved last week truly can be a beginning and not the end.