INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana House voted 97-2 on Monday to approve a package of legislative ethics and lobbying changes.
House Bill 1001 now moves to the Senate for consideration.
House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, introduced the bill to build public confidence in the lawmaking system, but he said no major scandal prompted it. And he thanked his fellow legislators for conducting themselves honorably, noting that “this could have been a rock-throwing contest.”
Contentious amendments were proposed that targeted specific members of the General Assembly, but none were considered.
House Bill 1001’s major provisions:
•Prohibits lawmakers from becoming lobbyists until one year after the end of their term.
•Lowers the reporting requirement threshold for gifts and meals from lobbyists to lawmakers from $100 to $50.
•Bars the governor from fundraising during a long budget session. Lawmakers already are prohibited.
•Prohibits lobbying firms from representing clients with conflicting interests.
•Bans businesses holding contracts with the state for more than $100,000 from contributing to some political campaigns.
Rep. David Wolkins, R-Winona Lake, was one of only two members to cast a “no” vote. He said everyone should be allowed to contribute to the candidate of their choice regardless of contracts – as long as it is disclosed – and should not be limited in their post-legislative employment.
“This bill is not so much about ethics as politics,” he said, noting it was driven by newspaper editorial boards around the state that banded together on the issue.
And he said the House failed in not discussing some of the amendments, whether they were touchy issues or not.
The other member voting against the bill was Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville.
Redistricting bill moves forward
Indiana lawmakers would have guidelines for redrawing state political district maps next year if a bill that cleared an Indiana Senate committee Monday becomes law.
The Senate Elections Committee voted 6-2 to advance the bill, which would stress the preservation of traditional neighborhoods and keeping “communities of interest” together.
Bill supporters said the guidelines could prevent gerrymandered legislative districts created for partisan reasons.
Others said the bill doesn’t go far enough because it would not explicitly prohibit political data, such as voting patterns, from being used when creating state Senate and House legislative districts to carve out stronger districts or addresses to keep an incumbent in a district.
The Indiana Constitution requires state lawmakers to vote on new legislative maps after the U.S. census every 10 years. The process will take place in the 2011 session.
The bill calls for legislative districts to be drawn to preserve local communities of interest based on cultural, ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic similarities. The guidelines also say districts should be compact, have simple shapes and respect county boundary lines when possible.
Julia Vaughn of the watchdog group Common Cause Indiana noted that other states use independent commissions to set political boundaries. That’s been proposed in Indiana, but some say it would take several years to implement a new system.
All six Republicans on the Senate committee voted for the bill, while two Democrats voted against it.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
