Gambling lobbyists gain new member

INDIANAPOLIS -- When state Rep. Mike Smith announced earlier this week that he was resigning to head a gambling group, he joined a string of lawmakers who have left the Legislature to become lobbyists.\nThe move will likely give the gambling industry added power during the legislative session that begins Jan. 7 -- a fact that worries some gambling opponents.\nBut others say Smith should not have accepted any lobbyist position.\nJulia Vaughn, policy director for Common Cause/Indiana, favors a waiting period for lawmakers to become lobbyists so that they can't trade on the trust voters placed in them.\n"It's a revolving door. You go in it as a legislator, and it spits you out as a lobbyist," Vaughn told The Indianapolis Star for a story published Thursday. "There's something wrong with that."\nSmith, R-Rensselaer, announced Tuesday that he would resign his seat at the end of the month to become executive director of the Casino Association of Indiana.\nThe news shocked his constituents, including the GOP chairman in Jasper County.\nKenneth Culp Jr. said he had no idea that Smith was contemplating leaving the legislative seat he had held since 1994 until someone told him the news had appeared in the newspaper.\nSmith's constituents are "kind of like I am. They feel like they've been left without a leader," Culp said. "I'm in total shock."\nSmith will become one of more than two dozen gambling lobbyists during the session, though he said Thursday the position he accepted involves very little lobbying and more handling of regulatory issues.\nSmith also said he's not sure a waiting period for lawmakers to become lobbyists would make a positive change.\n"I think you really have to look long and hard to see if there's been any bad public policy that's come from that," he said. "When it comes down to it, all of the people who sit in those seats and cast those votes know they are accountable to the people who put them there"