Thirty-seven states impose limits on the amount of money an individual can contribute to a political candidate. Iowa is one of 13 that don’t.

In Minnesota, for example, a donor can give no more than $2,000 to any gubernatorial candidate in an election year. Here in Iowa, Des Moines businessman Gary Kirke has lavished more than $75,000 on Republican candidate Jim Nussle in 2006 alone, according to information on the Web site www.followthemoney.org. Kirke also donated more than $37,000 to Nussle’s campaign in 2005.

Nussle is far outpacing Democratic candidate Chet Culver in fund raising, and a number of Central Iowa business people are doing their part to make that happen. During the past two years, Gary Sandquist, president of United Contractors in Johnston, has donated $60,000 to Nussle. Developer Denny Elwell has given $51,600. Ankeny developer Dennis Albaugh, Des Moines business leader Jim Cownie and Richard Jacobson, the founder of Jacobson Cos., each have given $50,000. Mid-America Group founder Marvin Pomerantz has kicked in $35,000.

Nussle has collected $272,351 from the insurance industry and $215,600 from real estate interests, according to the Web site. James Nepola, an orthopedic surgeon and professor of medicine at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, has given Nussle $80,000 over the past two years.

Culver’s top benefactors have been lawyers and lobbyists, with $139,525 in donations.

The leading individual givers to Culver include Scott Ginsburg, a Dallas, Texas, businessman with a record of ethical misbehavior, who has given $25,000 this year and $65,000 altogether, and Central Iowa mega-developer Bill Knapp, who has given more than $30,000 to Culver this year.

Imagine how different the campaigns might be if we had Kansas’ rules, which limit individual donations to $2,000 for any statewide candidate, or the $1,200 limit of Missouri.

Whether the campaigns would become more meaningful, it’s hard to say. But the suspicion of influence-peddling, the single greatest flaw in the American political system, would be lessened. That would be a good step forward for Iowa.