It took more than a little nerve for Governor Spitzer to lecture New Yorkers on Thursday about how money has distorted priorities in Albany. After all, were it not for his access to the state purse, Mr. Spitzer would still be begging lawmakers to give him the time of day. Instead, he was able to persuade them to gently tighten the screws of a few campaign finance laws only after giving them that priority-twisting, outcome-distorting thing called money. And not just a little of it. Not only did the governor fork over two $300 million pots of discretionary capital “pork” money — one to the Assembly Democrats and the other to Senate Republicans — but, according to a knowledgeable source, he also agreed to give part-time lawmakers a pay raise that will push up their $79,500 base salary to just shy of six figures.

In announcing the deal at a press conference on Thursday, the governor avoided talking about such indelicacies, shielding the public from any information that could lead somebody to question his commitment to political integrity. Mr. Spitzer says he is a proponent of transparency, but he’s also concerned about the perception of a public that may misinterpret his actions. If Mr. Spitzer had actually been straightforward and explained how he exchanged capital pork and pay raises for an agreement on campaign finance, New Yorkers might have questioned the appropriateness of such an arrangement instead of cheering him for helping to make Albany more ethical. New Yorkers may have asked annoying questions such as: “Isn’t this exactly the type of secret Albany bartering that you railed against as a candidate?” or “Does lowering campaign contribution limits justify the consequences of adding on hundreds of millions of dollars in debt” or “Are you now going to have to dump money on lawmakers every time you want them to get something done?”

It’s all worth it, says Mr. Spitzer, who is of the view that sometimes you have to get yourself dirty to get yourself clean. The new campaign finance measures approved by lawmakers, he said, would have the impact of “shutting down much of the access of money to government in a way that will bring back integrity and restore the public’s confidence.” Let’s set side the governor’s odd assumption that the laxity of New York’s campaign finance regulations — and not the myriad of corruption charges leveled at elected officials or boiling frustration over high taxes — is the primary cause of the public’s low opinion of our state government. Let’s also set aside the governor’s implicit claim that states with fewer restrictions on political giving are necessarily more dysfunctional, an assumption that would seem to be contradicted by a broad consensus that Virginia, a state without any contribution limits, has one of the most functional state governments in America.

The most disingenuous claim by the governor is that the new changes to the state’s campaign finance laws will shut down the “access of money.” Does the governor really believe that lowering the amount that one can contribute to a Senate candidate to $11,500 from $15,500 will have any impact on anything? The biggest victory for the governor is supposedly an agreement by lawmakers to place a cap on annual contributions to party committee “soft money” accounts that would start at $300,000 in January 2009 and decline to $150,000 by 2013. A look at campaign finance records, however, shows that the only person who would be affected by this change would be Mayor Bloomberg, one of the few donors who has given in amounts that exceed the new limits.

Lawmakers refused to accept any of the restrictions proposed by Mr. Spitzer that would have actually limited the flow of money. The limited liability company loophole is as gaping as ever, despite a prohibition on contributions from “sham” LLCs. One challenges the governor to identify any of the millions of dollars that he has received through LLCs that would no longer pass muster under this new law. The governor also failed in his effort to get lawmakers to impose a limit on the amount that a political action committee can give in a year. Interest groups, such as labor unions, may still funnel money into the system as easily as they could before.

One wonders what motivated the governor to accept such a deal. By turning over $300 million to Senate Republicans, Mr. Spitzer has given the embattled conference exactly what it needs to curry favor in marginal districts: unrestricted pork spending. By giving lawmakers a pay raise, Mr. Spitzer has wasted an important tool of leverage that he could have saved for next year’s budget battle. The most obvious reason is that the governor is in a rush to give Albany a clean bill of health and declare that he has fixed state government as he promised. The public, which is already filling in the pieces of Mr. Spitzer’s cynical press conference, isn’t that gullible.