A century-old Texas law prohibiting corporations from supporting political candidates was severely weakened when District Judge Mike Lynch threw out an indictment against the Texas Association of Business on Thursday.

The business group collected about $1.7 million in secret corporate money to influence two-dozen legislative races in 2002 and enhance the Republican Party's power in the Capitol. That money paid for a vicious attack ad campaign just before the November elections. Most of the business group's candidates won.

Anyone who viewed those advertisements understood clearly that they urged the defeat of Democrats and the election of Republicans. But because they did not use the words "elect," "support" or "defeat," the judge ruled they were not expressly advocating for or against a political candidate and did not violate the law.

Despite the ruling, Lynch wrote in quashing the indictment that the ads "engage in what most non-technical, common-sense people (i.e. non-lawyers) would think of as clear support for specific candidates." It is too bad Lynch didn't rule based on that common sense approach instead of the narrowest definition of what constitutes electioneering - words such as "elect" and "defeat."

In tossing the indictment, Lynch opens the gates for powerful corporations to spend millions of dollars secretly to campaign for and against candidates in Texas. As long as the corporations avoid specific words, they can do pretty much as they like under the guise of issue advertising.

That renders impotent an important - and time-tested - tenet of Texas politics: that elections cannot be bought by corporate interests.

In his written comments, Lynch complained that the Texas Election Code governing this issue is a mess. He described it as an "archaic, cumbersome, confusing, poorly written document in need of a serious legislative overhaul."

That may be, but the law worked well enough for 100 years, until a grasping, arrogant business-interest lobby decided to push the limits of the law as far as it could. Now corporations wanting to influence the Legislature have a clear path to support or oppose candidates. TAB's leaders may be high-fiving each other after Lynch's ruling, but having your indictment dismissed on a technicality is nothing to brag about or celebrate.

It may be asking too much to expect the Republican majority controlling the Legislature to reinvigorate the prohibition on corporate money in political campaigns. The Republican lawmakers benefited the most from the business association's offensive campaign in 2002.

The Legislature really should do the right thing for the people of Texas.

The election code should be strengthened and the ban on corporate funding restored and reinforced. Lawmakers shouldn't allow the business association's sham of issue advertising to thrive. They will find it cuts Republicans as deeply as Democrats.