TheGeneral+
Another Day, Another Dollar
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Our position: Gambling lobbyist ties to two legislators expose the intolerable weakness of ethics laws.
If the average Hoosier taxpayer were dropped off at work every morning by a limousine owned by his company's competitor, and was handed a satchel by the chauffeur, his boss might ask him to search his soul as to whether this might influence his performance.
Right. More likely he'd be looking for a new job. And if he wanted a code of ethics that allowed him to do business as usual, he might apply at the Indiana General Assembly.
Monday's disclosure by The Star's Michele McNeil that a gambling company with huge stakes in slot machine expansion has been funneling money to two legislators is appalling enough in its own right. The blasé attitude toward this influence peddling on the part of the beneficiaries and House Speaker Brian Bosma is even more egregious.
From a historical standpoint, it's all business as usual for a lawmaking body whose disclosure policy on gifts from lobbyists received an F grade last year from the Center for Public Integrity -- and the benefits enjoyed by Rep. David Frizzell, R-Indianapolis, and Sen. Jeff Drozda, R-Westfield, don't even count in those calculations.
Frizzell gets paid $68,000 a year to serve as president of Third Millennium Foundation, a private charity founded with a $160,000 grant from Centaur Inc., owner of Hoosier Park in Anderson and currently the heaviest spending lobbyist in the Statehouse. Drozda owns a marketing firm that does business with Centaur.
To the impertinent question of whether their relationship with Centaur might influence their vote on gambling issues, such as the expansion of slot machines to horse tracks, both men say of course not. Frizzell says he'll recuse himself from such votes and Drozda says he'll ask the Senate ethics committee for advice on whether he should too. Both say they oppose expanding gambling beyond existing horse tracks and riverboats -- which would mean two "no" votes Centaur would be spared.
Bosma, whose law firm did business with nine lobbyists or their clients in 2004, pretty much concurs that things are OK. "The influence of the industry should be of concern to us," he told McNeil, "But I think they have no influence over David Frizzell."
Well. If they think so and he thinks so, then who are mere taxpayers to ask that legislators be made to live under ethics rules other states have adopted?
Unlike those fuddy-duddies, Indiana puts no limit on gifts from lobbyists to legislators and for all practical purposes leaves the amounts open to speculation. "More than $100" and "more than $250" are all the elected official has to say. And of course it is left to the legislator himself to decide whether he might be unduly influenced by a freebie, a job, a business deal or -- as in the Frizzell case -- a charitable end run around the reporting laws.
Gov. Mitch Daniels, who has offered a modestly stiffened ethics law for non-legislative state employees, has yet to challenge the legislature's refusal to apply even those changes to itself. The latest revelations about coziness with vested interests cannot go unanswered by him. Daniels must denounce these links to a powerful lobby, and the general mind-set they reflect, if he is to prove true to his pledge to make ethics a top priority. He might even consider putting lobbying patrol on the to-do list of the inspector general whose post he wants to see created.
From the reaction so far to ethics proposals and ethics episodes, the entire GOP leadership, which ran for election on a platform of ridding state government of corruption, seems entirely too easy to please -- and too hopeful the boss, the Indiana taxpayer, is likewise.
indystar.com
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If the average Hoosier taxpayer were dropped off at work every morning by a limousine owned by his company's competitor, and was handed a satchel by the chauffeur, his boss might ask him to search his soul as to whether this might influence his performance.
Right. More likely he'd be looking for a new job. And if he wanted a code of ethics that allowed him to do business as usual, he might apply at the Indiana General Assembly.
Monday's disclosure by The Star's Michele McNeil that a gambling company with huge stakes in slot machine expansion has been funneling money to two legislators is appalling enough in its own right. The blasé attitude toward this influence peddling on the part of the beneficiaries and House Speaker Brian Bosma is even more egregious.
From a historical standpoint, it's all business as usual for a lawmaking body whose disclosure policy on gifts from lobbyists received an F grade last year from the Center for Public Integrity -- and the benefits enjoyed by Rep. David Frizzell, R-Indianapolis, and Sen. Jeff Drozda, R-Westfield, don't even count in those calculations.
Frizzell gets paid $68,000 a year to serve as president of Third Millennium Foundation, a private charity founded with a $160,000 grant from Centaur Inc., owner of Hoosier Park in Anderson and currently the heaviest spending lobbyist in the Statehouse. Drozda owns a marketing firm that does business with Centaur.
To the impertinent question of whether their relationship with Centaur might influence their vote on gambling issues, such as the expansion of slot machines to horse tracks, both men say of course not. Frizzell says he'll recuse himself from such votes and Drozda says he'll ask the Senate ethics committee for advice on whether he should too. Both say they oppose expanding gambling beyond existing horse tracks and riverboats -- which would mean two "no" votes Centaur would be spared.
Bosma, whose law firm did business with nine lobbyists or their clients in 2004, pretty much concurs that things are OK. "The influence of the industry should be of concern to us," he told McNeil, "But I think they have no influence over David Frizzell."
Well. If they think so and he thinks so, then who are mere taxpayers to ask that legislators be made to live under ethics rules other states have adopted?
Unlike those fuddy-duddies, Indiana puts no limit on gifts from lobbyists to legislators and for all practical purposes leaves the amounts open to speculation. "More than $100" and "more than $250" are all the elected official has to say. And of course it is left to the legislator himself to decide whether he might be unduly influenced by a freebie, a job, a business deal or -- as in the Frizzell case -- a charitable end run around the reporting laws.
Gov. Mitch Daniels, who has offered a modestly stiffened ethics law for non-legislative state employees, has yet to challenge the legislature's refusal to apply even those changes to itself. The latest revelations about coziness with vested interests cannot go unanswered by him. Daniels must denounce these links to a powerful lobby, and the general mind-set they reflect, if he is to prove true to his pledge to make ethics a top priority. He might even consider putting lobbying patrol on the to-do list of the inspector general whose post he wants to see created.
From the reaction so far to ethics proposals and ethics episodes, the entire GOP leadership, which ran for election on a platform of ridding state government of corruption, seems entirely too easy to please -- and too hopeful the boss, the Indiana taxpayer, is likewise.
indystar.com
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that has to be a good thing??
:howdy:
