LEGISLATORS obviously aren’t the only ones who weren’t as careful as they should have been when they tried to work through the convoluted new definition of a “contribution” in the state campaign finance law.

On Wednesday, I wrote a column about how language they had inserted into that definition in 2003 had gutted the entire law. This was done — by mistake, I remain convinced — with language that said money spent during the last 45 days of a campaign is not to be considered a contribution. That means such money, no matter when it’s collected, doesn’t fall under any of the law’s provisions concerning contributions.

The loophole was inserted into the law. But as House Speaker David Wilkins’ staff pointed out Wednesday morning when he told them to get to work on closing it, it applies only to spending done by what’s called a “non-candidate committee” — the political parties, All Children Matter or the S.C. Education Association, for example. The money given to the candidates themselves is still considered a contribution, and is still covered by the law’s restrictions and reporting requirements.

(Note to self: When the speaker of the House tells you he is completely unaware of a 21-month-old loophole that undermines a landmark law he was instrumental in writing, take that as a warning to triple-check the facts before proceeding.)

So where does this leave us?

Well, it leaves me deeply embarrassed. After all, I raised the specter of candidates raising millions they would not have to report. The good news is that it leaves our state in a place that is not nearly so horrible as I thought. I thought we were the only state in the nation where candidates can potentially hide all of their campaign donations from the public.

However, we’re still in a bad place: The new loophole renders the 2003 law largely meaningless — and does damage to the law as it existed before 2003.

The purpose of the 2003 law was to shut down another loophole, this one created not by the Legislature but by the State Ethics Commission, when it told groups like All Children Matter and the S.C. Education Association that as long as they can pretend they’re working independently of the candidates, state law doesn’t apply to the ads and get-out-the-vote campaigns and other efforts they purchase to try to get us to vote for the candidates of their choice. Another commission-created loophole had allowed the Republican and Democratic parties to hide the identities of many of their donors from the public.

Those loopholes had been around for a few years, but they weren’t fully exploited until 1998, when the video poker barons spent hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of dollars on “independent” ads convincing voters to oust then-Gov. David Beasley, who was trying to outlaw video gambling. Since state law limits the amount of money one person or business can give to a campaign, much of that spending probably would have been illegal if not for the Ethics Commission ruling that state law didn’t cover “independent” campaigns. And while the gambling industry’s TV and radio commercials were obvious, much of the campaign was under the radar.

The poker barons also were believed to have poured millions into the coffers of the Democratic Party, which suddenly swelled beyond recognition. But the party didn’t have to acknowledge who was underwriting its efforts, so we can’t know for sure.

The result was that the public had no idea how much money video poker was spending to unseat Mr. Beasley, or how deeply the Democratic Party was indebting itself to that industry.

While Democrats were the big beneficiaries of the loopholes in 1998, there was no question that Republicans would be able to exploit them in the future. So it was in both parties’ interest to close them. Still, it took five legislative sessions to get the job done.

And, as it turns out, the job didn’t get done.

Because of some confusing language that was incorrectly inserted into the bill in the wrong place at the last minute, the law only requires the political parties and special-interest groups to report where their money comes from if they spend it early in the election campaigns.

Since most such spending comes near Election Day, the fix is meaningless for all practical purposes. Beyond that, the new loophole exempts much of the activity of some groups that were already covered by the law. That means that unless the loophole is closed, voters will be kept more in the dark in the 2006 elections than they have been in any election since at least 1992.

This week, Sen. Tom Moore and House Speaker David Wilkins both instructed their staffs to come up with legislation to close the loophole, although Mr. Wilkins says he hasn’t yet decided whether he will try to make the change this session or wait until a panel he appointed to review the entire ethics and campaign finance law makes its recommendations for the 2006 session. That should be an easy call.

I’ve admitted my mistake and done what I can to correct it.

It’s time — actually, well past time — for the Legislature to do the same.

Ms. Scoppe can be reached at cscoppe@thestate.com or at (803) 771-8571.