It is often scary to watch how laws are made, unmade and remade in this state, especially when they concern issues as central to our democratic system as controlling the flow of campaign money.

This session, another chapter in our state's campaign-finance saga is being rewritten. The writers seem to be in a terrible hurry: They know this is an election year and want to keep the cash pipelines flowing.

But campaign finance statutes are complex, and any fixes ought to be considered carefully, or the result will be another flawed law.

The House and Senate each have submitted their own measures — HB 2455 and SB 3141 — that have ultimately the same effect. They would eliminate the two-year-old $1,000 cap on contributions going from any corporation's treasury to a political action committee in any election cycle.

If anyone is shocked that the Legislature would have approved such a stringent cap in the first place, don't be. The cap apparently happened by mistake, when lawmakers were reworking the 2005 bill.

Legislators say the current bills will correct the mistake and restore an option they meant to leave in place all along. Corporations writing checks from their own treasury will be able to give as much as they want to the corporation's own PAC, which then would distribute payments to individual campaigns up to the legal limit: $2,000 for a two-year office, $4,000 for a four-year nonstatewide office and $6,000 for a four-year statewide office.

Judging by the outcry at this week's public hearings, many public-interest groups believe the $1,000 limit was a good thing. But it seems pointless to cap contributions to a PAC at $1,000, when the same law allows contributions to candidates at a higher legal limit. There is good reason to restrict corporate influence to some extent, but the current law makes no sense.

Further complicating the situation: The Campaign Spending Commission has decided not to enforce the existing cap for the current campaign season because of a legal dispute over contributions to Mayor Charmaine Tavares' campaign. In July, the Maui Circuit Court ruled in Tavares' favor, saying the cap didn't apply to those donations, citing language in a separate section of the law. The case is on appeal.

The commission opposes the bills. Its primary concern: Corporate donations made directly to candidates will not be held to the same reporting requirements as PACs, which means they're less transparent to the public.

That is an issue worthy of full debate. The law needs amending, but to do a good job, lawmakers must give it the attention and focus that it deserves.