WASHINGTON - Upset by the millions of dollars that outside groups spent in the 2004 election, a House panel on Wednesday took a step toward limiting such organizations.

The House Administration Committee, on a 5-3 vote, sent a bill to the full House that would place tax-exempt partisan groups under the same fundraising and spending limits that apply to political action committees.

The House is expected to act on the legislation sponsored by Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass., next month.

In the last election, the groups, commonly known as 527s for the section of the tax law that covers them, raised about $534 million and spent roughly $544 million, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Political Money Line, which tracks campaign spending.

Groups that backed Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry and opposed President Bush raised $266 million. Organizations opposed to Kerry and backing the president collected $144 million.

Is more regulation of political campaigning and advocacy really what we want? If you ask me the politicians who want to "clean up the money" in politics are going about things the wrong way.

Instead of all these limitations on contributions and such why not simply make the system more transparent? Why not require that every politician put a full disclosure of who contributed to their various campaigns and political action groups (or whatever) and how much was contributed right on their website? Or make the list available from their office to constituents on demand?

I know these politicians are already required to make certain disclosures, but why not make those requirements more exacting? Then let the public follow the money and draw their own conclusions.

Because frankly, the way things are going now, the politicians are going to have made political campaigning advocacy so difficult with all the red tape that its going to severely limit the number of voices we hear from.

But then again, maybe that's the point.