When faced this summer with five 1998 state-office candidates who accepted contributions to retire campaign debt that exceeded new limits that went into effect at the beginning of this year, the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Elections adopted the lenient approach.

The fudging five — including a prominent lawyer and three veteran lawmakers — said they were unaware of the new limits hundreds of other candidates somehow knew about. The commission weighed the relatively minor degree of the infractions, accepted the newness of the law as a valid defense and let the perpetrators walk without penalty, without even a scolding.

Now, in a vivid demonstration of how good deeds never go unpunished, the commission has to deal with three legislators — not mere candidates, but actual sworn-to-uphold the law lawmakers — who owe more than $4,700 in long overdue fines for failing to file timely campaign-finance and income reports. Worse, one is trotting out the “ignorance of the law” defense that works in no court other than the one run by the ethics commission and one is using the commission’s acceptance of that unacceptable defense as his own defense.

The three, two Democrats and one Republican, are: Rep. Joseph Perry of Bangor, who owes $471 for filing his campaign-finance report eight days late; Rep. Michael Quint of Portland, who owes $3,307 for being 134 days late with his; and Rep. Stavros Mendros of Lewiston, who owes $1,000 for missing his personal income report deadline by 150 days.

Rep. Perry, who has the most to complain about in the ratio of fine-to-tardiness department, has several weeks to work out a payment arrangement before he faces civil action. Rep. Quint says he’ll pay within a few days but then completely spoils the effect by saying the numerous phone calls over several months from commission staff about his late report weren’t adequate notice that his report was late. Rep. Mendros isn’t sure if he’ll pay. He says the fine is excessive and — bingo — the commission let the others off, so why not him?

The penalties attached to laws, criminal and civil, are flexible because there occasionally are mitigating circumstances that justify leniency. In the case of the five who said they were unaware of a law enacted through a highly publicized citizen-initiated referendum, the commission mistook malarkey for mitigating. And now the commission’s been bitten right on its good intentions. In the process, the public’s faith in government gets nipped, as do all those law-abiding lawmakers who stay up late doing reports.

The commission deserves praise for the work it does. It publishes a very clear and informative guide for candidates and political organizations on the pertinent laws, including the various reporting deadlines. The fact that staffers made numerous calls about these particular reports demonstrates a commendable desire for compliance instead of punishment. What the commission now must learn is what very good courtroom judge already knows: Penalties serve a purpose beyond punishing offenders. They act as a deterrent to others and, perhaps most importantly, they reassure society that violations of law, however small, really do matter.