Few people knew how truly wretched South Carolina's campaign finance laws were until the 1998 election season. Video poker supporters, both fearing then-Gov. David Beasley and hopping mad at him, pumped a tremendous amount of money into a successful effort to defeat Beasley.

Democrat Jim Hodges clearly benefited from this effort that resulted in large amounts of unregulated and unreported money working to limit Beasley to one term.

South Carolina finally has tougher campaign finance laws, thanks to the 2003 General Assembly, newly elected Gov. Mark Sanford and the untiring work of some key legislative leaders, House Speaker David Wilkins of Greenville being top on the list. In future elections, S.C. voters will have a much better idea of who is trying to influence elections because of the campaign finance reform bill recently signed into law by Sanford -- who made good on his own 2002 campaign promise to close monstrous loopholes in the existing law.

The bill gives voters what Wilkins correctly called "the tools they need to make informed decisions."

A tough campaign finance reform law was greatly needed in South Carolina. As Sanford said, "South Carolinians deserve to know who's trying to influence their votes."