Legislators “offended” by lobbying bill

This article by Mary Beth Schneider is a little amusing. Apparently some legislators were “offended” by the notion that people would perceive anything untoward about the revolving door between the General Assembly and the lobbying industry. Sen. Miller introduced a bill that would’ve required a one year cooling off period between serving in the General Assembly and becoming employed as a lobbyist.

The Indianapolis Republican’s fellow lawmakers, however, were so offended by that perception that they killed her bill.

. . .

Sen. Marvin Riegsecker, the Goshen Republican who controlled the bill’s fate as chairman of the Senate Public Policy Committee, said he killed the proposal because he and other senators were angered by comments that “we’re taking money under the table. That’s the interpretation we had.”

Those members of the public who had pushed for the bill say they were talking about the legislature’s image, not making specific accusations.

“I guess we read between the lines,” Riegsecker said. “Either way, it angered my fellow senators, so I wasn’t going to subject them to a vote. I don’t think the bill would have passed anyway.”

. . .

[T]he lawmakers were hostile “from the get-go.”

“To be honest, it almost seemed to me that they wanted to be offended so that they would have an excuse not to deal with the problem,” said Patricia Wittberg, a sociology professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and a Catholic nun, who came to testify.
Wittberg said that throughout her 18 years of teaching, when she talks to her students about legislators representing them “in a fair and just way, and not influenced by special interests, the students laugh. They laugh.”

It was those words that Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville, found among the most offensive.
“The testimony was so nasty and mean and personal that the committee members were furious,” she said. “It was a very unpleasant confrontation. That’s not how you get legislation passed around here.”

Sandra Mowell, a member of the League of Women Voters who also testified, said it was lawmakers who were “rather nasty.”

“I thought they just reacted rather violently without a whole lot of provocation toward us,” she said. “People in elective office may say they want people to participate in this process, but I went away with the definite opinion that that’s just talk.”

Here are the facts – Most legislators are perfectly honest. The general public has a vague notion that they’re getting screwed by government. Legislators frequently turn around and get paid good money by lobbying firms after the legislators are out of office. This apparent cashing in gives the vague notion something concrete to latch on to. Being offended doesn’t change the reality of this perception. The cooling off legislation might change the perception a bit. Overreacting to the proposal just reinforces the perception.