Governor Spitzer, who is moving to tackle the issue of campaign finance, could be walking into a political trap, in which voters will be stuck with reforms that will do more harm than good.

At the core of Albany’s ills are policies designed to benefit a few selected, mobilized interest groups rather than larger, disparate, and disorganized groups, notably taxpayers. Mr. Spitzer says the way to address this imbalance is to take money out of politics by tightening the state’s campaign finance laws. He reckons that reducing contribution limits and closing loopholes would allow him to “neutralize the army of special interests.”

While Mr. Spitzer is the one leading the charge for an overhaul of the laws, it is the Republican Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, and the Democratic speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, who have final say over how the laws will be changed. Their goal is to offer the governor a compromise that the governor can hold up as a victory but that won’t threaten their power over their members or their lucrative relationship with the special interests.

The key is maintaining central control over campaign fund raising. Particularly in the Assembly, many rank-and-file lawmakers raise little money on their own and are not encouraged to do so. The real money flows to campaign committees controlled by Messrs. Bruno and Silver that can accept donations up to $94,200 from individual contributors in a calendar year. The committees also have so-called housekeeping accounts, which can receive donations of unlimited size and rake in millions of dollars a year of soft money to support “party building” activities.

The money helps to keep lawmakers on a tight leash. A lawmaker may not support the policies of a given interest group, but by taking money from the legislative campaign committees, they become indebted to both the leader and the groups that provide the funding.

Mr. Spitzer has called for a dramatic reduction in contribution limits. The question is which type of contributions will be restricted. If the governor signs on to a plan that reduces limits for individual candidates but does not drastically lower the ceiling on committees, the result will be to achieve the opposite of what he hopes to accomplish.

The effect would be to marginalize further individual lawmakers by making it even harder for them to raise money independently. Although Mr. Spitzer is under pressure to deliver on his promise of campaign finance reform, he will need to be careful not to accept a compromise that would represent a step backward.

Even if the governor somehow persuades the legislative leaders to spread out the money, there’s little he can do to take the money out of politics. Tougher campaign finance laws won’t change the underlying dynamic that prevents sensible policies — such as a repeal of the costly Wicks Law that is a sop to the building trades unions — from getting a vote on the floor.

Interest groups will find news ways to inject money into the system and to curry influence with the leaders. And money is not the only vehicle for buying support and votes. Labor unions are effective in Albany because they can lend support staff, provide phone bank and get-out-the vote operations, and flood the airwaves and newspapers with ads.

As for the public, the best it can hope for is better disclosure. The more the public is aware of how money is distributed in Albany, the more it can use the information to make judgments on Election Day. The State Board of Election’s campaign finance Web site is about as user friendly as a Rubik’s Cube. It’s set up in a way to make it difficult and time-consuming to track donors, to follow the flow of money, and to search for the right information.

In this regard, the most effective change in the area of campaign finance might be instigated by the attorney general’s office, which has recruited a good government veteran, Blair Horner, to create a so-called Project Sunlight, a comprehensive Internet database that promises to map out the relationships among donors, lobbyists, state contracts, and elected officials.

Regardless of the deal on campaign finance that is reached, Mr. Spitzer will likely declare that he has solved another problem in the capital. The laws of politics require that his governorship move on a preordained trajectory. The starting point in 2006 is an Albany clouded by secrecy, burdened by inefficiency, beholden to powerful interests, and crying out for reform.

The end point, let’s say 2012, is an Albany cleansed of its past, responsive to the people, and no longer beholden to special interests. Mr. Spitzer is in danger of underestimating the wisdom of voters, who understand that disarming special interest groups will require more than a change in campaign finance laws.