Kansas just went through its first election cycle with reporting of last-minute payments to candidates for the House and Senate.

It's hard to tell for sure what we learned, but Kansans who care probably got a little better look at how money moves through campaigns.

We learned, for example, that the State Senate's Republican campaign fund sent money to a moderate Republican political organization ahead of the primary election.

We learned, also, that the Senatorial Democrats' campaign fund channeled money through its committee to a challenger to a three-term incumbent Democratic senator.

And we probably learned that at least a couple organizations were just tardy in sending out their campaign contributions and wound up in a dim spotlight, but in the light, nonetheless.

The enhanced reporting pierced the traditional 11-day before the election time period when no significant campaign finance information was publicly available.

Practically, the opened-up reporting approved during the last legislative session was considered to be a milestone. News organizations liked it, fans of "transparency" liked it, and it seemed like a way to allow just ordinary Kansas voters with access to the Internet to see some of the under-the-covers movement of money.

For most Kansans, we'll presume that they never took a look at the money movement. At some point, they saw its results: more mail, more TV, more radio and newspaper advertisements and maybe phone calls, either by live people or the dreaded "robo" calls, which are basically recorded messages coming into your home that now at least identify their sponsors early in the call so you can decide whether you want to listen or let the dog out.

It may be possible some day for us to learn just how many people went to the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission Web site for a look behind the veil of campaign finance. Then we can draw some conclusions about whether Kansans were ready for the new information that became available as the primary election campaign pushed to election day, and some judgments can be made about the value of the additional information.

And it could take at least another election cycle for most Kansans who are interested to figure out where that information is and maybe how to make a judgment on the velocity of money in a campaign and whether it is of any interest to them.

Part of that education will be figuring out just what those last-minute contributors are interested in.

The names are, of course, all noble sounding, the sort of names that you might want to give money to because it sounds like the groups share your interests. But they're not all clear, and, for example, most of us are interested in lifesaving cures, but might not be into stem cell research. See the problem there? Do you want to give or not, and for the candidates who are the ultimate beneficiaries of that money, are they for what you are for?

The reports showing that in the Senate, for example, money went to particular senators, well, that's curious, but it is done for a reason by the people who lead the Republican and Democratic caucuses of the upper chamber. It does give even the casual inquirer a clear message about whom the leadership wants in their caucuses, and that's another choice that people can make if they have problems with how that late-in-the-cycle money was apportioned.

All-in-all, this primary cycle saw more information for voters to ponder. It's the sort of things that you don't see on brochures or generally read about in the newspapers because newspapers, too, are just learning how to use the information.

This might get more interesting in the general election. We may be able to tell just how interesting it is by checking who gets sworn into office in January.

Syndicated by Hawver News Co. of Topeka, Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver's Capitol Report. To learn more about this statewide political news service, visit www.hawvernews.com.