It appears as though Republican Party Chairman James Evans has been successful in pushing the County Council to reinstate a rule that bans businesses doing more than $10,000 worth of business with the county from also donating to candidates for county office.

In so doing, he will have confirmed a cynical belief held by many who have lost faith in the political system. He will have established that campaign contributions are not efforts by citizens to foment good government but that they are, essentially, bribes.

Why single out contractors for such a ban when, as Democratic Councilwoman Jenny Wilson argues, it is likely an unconstitutional form of discrimination? Only out of the fear that businesses giving money to candidates will expect, even get, more county business in return.

Evans claims that a move by County Council Democrats to end the constitutionally suspect ban on contractors' contributions, even as they wisely slash the amount of money anyone can give, would be a return to the bad old days of corruption in county government.

Evans brazenly ignores the fact that all that corruption was under a Republican administration. He also wrongly suggests that the corruption that led to the downfall of former Mayor Nancy Workman involved sweetheart deals between county officials and some imagined collection of construction firms, health care providers, copy machine repair services or whoever it is who sells bullets to the sheriff.

But none of the Workman-era scandals - misuse of expense accounts and county vehicles and, for Workman herself, improperly detailing a county-paid worker to a nonprofit organization that employed her daughter - would have been touched by a contractor contribution ban.

What does prevent the wrongdoing Evans claims to fear is not found in the campaign finance code, but in good old-fashioned competitive bidding processes. In that system, it's who charges taxpayers the least, not who gives politicians the most, who wins.

The real threat of corruption comes not in purchasing decisions, usually a staff matter, but policy made by elected officials, notably zoning and development standards.

And the only way to make sure that those gifts aren't bribes would be to go to a system of publicly funded campaigns.

Who will be the first to propose that?