Girlene, first of all an atta-boy-girl for the great informational job you're doing for all of us!!!
I went to the capitolandwashington.com site you found for some of your information and found the following in the comments section:
"I heard from someone "on the inside" of this mess, that the legislators were all given prepaid credit cards with out of state zip code id's on them the day they left. The out of state zip codes were to hopefully keep them hidden for awhile.
"That sure didn't work. My question on the card issuance is "how did they know ahead of time that these cards would be needed?" HMMM"
Obviously we have no idea who the poster is or if her/his info is good, but it's interesting. If accurate, it all may come out eventually and I sure hope it does.
atta-boy-girl - lol, cute.
Yes, I saw that post about "inside" information, but also know how rumors are started. Another blog, "Advance Indiana" has a suggestion for how to deal with this situation. I have no idea how accurate these claims are, but found it interesting.
Can House Democrats Afford $250 A Day Fine? And Who Will Pay?
This site,
Limits on Contributions During the Legislative Session, last updated 1/25/2010, has a rundown of restrictions on giving and receiving campaign contributions during the legislative session by state. For Indiana, the restrictions are as follows:
"A member of or candidate for the General Assembly may not solicit or accept campaign contributions or conduct other fundraising activities during the period between the General Assembly convenes in January of each odd-numbered year and ending when that session adjourns sine die."
Don't know if these restrictions have been changed since Jan, 2010, or whether any of these "donations" could be considered campaign contributions. Also, it's doubtful that their activities in IL could be considered fund-raising activities.......but......with a bit more information on what's REALLY going on, some dots might be able to be connected.
Bottom line, these guys are really pushing their luck, IMO.