Stop the free lunches

The Indiana State Legislature is considering bills that will create more transparency and space between the elected state representatives and lobbyists.

Some of these include wording that creates a one-year minimum wait between serving the state and becoming a lobbyist and controlling the maximum amounts a legislator can accept in gifts.

We feel these are absolutely necessary steps in salvaging Indiana’s financial disclosure laws, which received an “F” from the Center for Public Integrity in their most recent analysis. In fact, the state of Indiana has five lobbyists for every one legislator. We need new laws to restrict the role of lobbyists and to reduce their influence.

The federal legislature already has a one-year ban on becoming a lobbyist after one quits legislating. This is a necessary move to slow down the flow of some former legislators into a secondary role in our government as lobbyists.

While the reforms suggested by House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer will certainly help, there is much more that needs to be done.

The current system is far from perfect. Free meals and things like sports tickets from public universities, such as IU, fly under the radar. We think it’s absolutely necessary for legislation to make universities file lobbying reports and legislators to disclose all gifts, even ones that are less than a Benjamin.

Legislators should be limited, for instance, in how much they are allowed to accept from lobbyists. Currently, no limitation is in place as long as all gifts more than $100 (or totaling more than $500 from a single lobbyist in a year) are reported.

Things like golf outings, trips to Puerto Rico and Colts and Pacers tickets, all of which have recently been handed to Indiana state representatives and senators, should not be unlimited and should certainly not go unreported.

Bauer’s proposals are a start, but they don’t go far enough – the people of Indiana demand more.