INDIANAPOLIS — Ahead of the final vote on a complex gambling bill at the end of the legislative session, a Republican lawmaker called on House leadership to vet his work outside the Statehouse for any conflicts of interest.

On April 23, Rep. Jerry Torr, R-Carmel, sent a letter to the House Committee on Ethics requesting the bipartisan commission give an opinion on his employer’s involvement with Spectacle Entertainment, a leading interest group backing the gambling bill.

Torr said his employer, Near North Title Group, provided title insurance and closing services to Spectacle officials last year as they prepared to purchase two Majestic Star casinos in Gary, Indiana, formerly operated by Majestic Holdco LLC.  The Indiana Gaming Commission approved the transaction in March at an undisclosed amount, according to a report by the Times of Northwest Indiana. 

Near North Title Group offered the services to Spectacle last year, Torr said, and, at the time, the lawmaker was unaware of the mounting debate on gambling expansion that would emerge during the 2019 legislative session, first in Senate Bill 552and later in an amended House Bill 1015.  Language in each bill allowed Spectacle to move the acquired Gary casinos inland from their current location of Lake Michigan.

But when the issue led several charged debates across the Statehouse, and after The Indianapolis Star reported that Gov. Eric Holcomb took two trips on a private jet with Spectacle officials and received thousands in campaign donations from the casino operator, Torr decided to file for an ethics review “out of an abundance of caution.”

“I was very comfortable under our ethics rules that I did not have a conflict in voting,” Torr said in a phone call. “But when a couple of other stories bubbled up in the media surrounding Spectacle Entertainment, I thought it was prudent to get confirmation from the ethics committee.”

Torr, unwilling to sacrifice his vote and “disenfranchise 65,000 voters by abstaining,” outlined in his letter to the ethics committee his approach to minimizing the ties between him and his company’s work for Spectacle.

“When I learned a few months later about the proposed legislative changes, I met with my CEO and requested that the Spectacle transaction not be included in my commission calculation in any way,” Torr wrote in the letter. “I have no ownership interest in the company and will not be personally benefiting financially from the transaction.”

And the ethics committee quickly concurred with Torr, releasing an opinion on the matter the same day he submitted his request.

The committee report said members reviewed the facts presented in Torr’s original letter, the legislation, and House rules before concluding there was no conflict of interest, case closed.

“All we talk about is what we put out in the paper,” said House Ethics Committee Co-Chair Sue Errington, D-Muncie, when asked if she could detail why Torr’s case stands out from other ethics concerns. “Our committee doesn’t elaborate. We look at the facts.”

Torr, who eventually voted yes on the final version of HB 1015, said his constituents urged him to support provisions in the bill that legalized mobile sports betting. He said he could find no mention of the Gary casino plan from correspondence with the citizens he represents.

This ethics review came several weeks after House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, recused himself from all discussions and votes on the gambling bill after disclosing he personally represented Vigo County Capital Improvement Board and Vigo County as a partner with the law firm Kroger Gardis & Regas LLP. The county sought legislation that would allow a casino to be built in Terre Haute, Indiana, which proponents say could bring an economic boost to the city.

While Rep. Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, a lawmaker who presented an amendment to the gaming bill to force Indiana governors to disclose meetings with casino leaders on private flights, said Torr abided by House rules and his constituents by pursuing an ethics review. But lawmakers have a duty to investigate the private flight meetings between Holcomb and Spectacle, he said.

“The governor apparently runs the whole show,” Bauer said, referring to when lawmakers in the Senate removed his amendment to restrict private flight meetings. “Something has to be done about it.”

David Orentlicher, co-director of the health law program at the University of Nevada Las Vegas and a former member of the Indiana House, said in Torr’s case both parties operated to the best of their ability within the risks posed by a part-time legislature.

“In the ethics committee, the rule looks to how direct the financial interest is,” he said. “When I was a legislator, I was also a professor, and the budget bill decided to fund for the university. The more funding the university had, the more it could pay me. Should I recuse myself from voting on the budget? That’s a problem.”

He said part-time structures often grant chamber leadership added leniency in ethics reviews. One rule cited in Torr’s case, for example, dictates conflicts of interests must stem from cases in which a legislator receives a “direct personal or pecuniary interest.”

The Indiana General Assembly does not meet year-round and allows its members to benefit from other sources of income, so long as they do not interfere with their ability to make objective decisions about legislation. Only 10 state legislatures operate on a full-time basis, according to a 2017 report by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

While Torr said he believes his constituents prefer a citizen legislature because it allows legislators to offer firsthand experience and expertise when crafting policy, Orentlicher said full-time legislatures are ultimately best for rooting out potential corruption.

“If you elect somebody who has a background in agriculture, they cut off their financial ties to the agricultural industry [in a full-time legislature],” Orentlicher said. “You can still have expertise in a full-time legislature.”

FOOTNOTE: Erica Irish is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.