OUR VIEW: Lawmakers need to beef up lobbying restrictions

For the past couple of weeks, The Star Press and 22 other newspapers serving 1.5 million readers in the state have printed articles and editorial cartoons detailing the plight of lobbying at the Indiana General Assembly.

It's not a pretty picture, and reform is called for -- reform with real teeth.

Currently, legislators may accept gifts of unlimited value from lobbyists. They even can interview for jobs with lobbying firms while still serving in elected office. This is wrong.

Fortunately, and no doubt thanks to the efforts of the Indiana newspapers, reform during the next session appears to be on the agenda.

House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, and David Long, president pro tempore of the Indiana Senate, are backing tougher lobbying laws.

A key provision backed by both lawmakers is a one-year "cooling off" period before former lawmakers can become paid lobbyists and turned loose in the halls of the Statehouse.

More than 30 former legislators are now working as lobbyists. There can be little doubt they have access and influence the average citizen can only dream about.

A second tenet is banning all gifts worth more than $50 in value. There's no justification for lawmakers to accept trips and tickets to sporting events from lobbyists. Trips and tickets do nothing to advance the public's interest.

There's a whole list of reforms that have been proposed (see breakout). We think it's a good starting point, and we encourage our local lawmakers to support changing the state's lobbying practices.

We also encourage Gov. Mitch Daniels to speak out on this issue. His strong voice of leadership is needed and the public deserves to know where he stands on lobbying.

Indiana has in place many preventative measures such as lobbyists registration and reporting requirements. These are good starts, but we believe you can never have too much transparency when it comes to influencing those we elect to govern us.

We hope our lawmakers agree and do something about it in the upcoming session.


Source:thestarpress.com