The Illinois legislature has seemingly tried to enact a narrow rule to limit some campaign contributions, but Kent Redfield, the University of Illinois/Springfield emeritus professor featured in Bill Knight’s column last month, doubts whether it’s much more than window-dressing.

Democrats say they’re prohibiting judicial races from being influenced by outside money or by organizations that use “dark money” to bolster candidates.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a measure in November prohibiting judicial candidates from receiving campaign contributions from out-of-state donors and groups that do not disclose where they get their money.

However, the law only applies to individual candidates’ campaign funds, so there’s little regulating “independent” committees that can legally spend unlimited funds if they don’t “coordinate” with candidates. They could raise money from outside Illinois or from groups that keep contributors secret.

“As a practical matter, the implementation and enforcement of this is very, very difficult,” Redfield told the Chicago Tribune.