By Tim Swarens

They just had to say thank you.

Thank you to the lobbyists who supplied the 50 members of the Indiana Senate with popcorn, milk, soft drinks, bottled water, candy and even a Wal-mart gift card throughout the General Assembly’s 2009 regular session.

The show of gratitude came from the top. The day before the session ended in April – a session culminated by lawmakers’ failure to approve a state budget – Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, found time to sponsor eight resolutions that piled praise on lobbyists for their generosity toward the legislature.

In one sense it’s a small matter, especially compared with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in luxury trips, prime tickets, expensive dinners and other gifts that lawmakers accept from lobbyists each year.

Yet the resolutions, approved by voice votes, also highlight the cozy and increasingly intense relationships that lobbyists build with Statehouse leaders. The gifts don’t stop, even on the Senate floor.

Lobbyists invested more than $25.8 million – $172,272 per lawmaker – courting legislators on behalf of their clients during the most recent annual reporting period. It’s a record amount, and one that continues to grow as lobbyists’ reports trickle in six months after the filing period ended on April 30.

Although most of the money went toward lobbyists’ salaries, a significant portion paid for handouts to legislators. Here are just three examples: The Indiana Motor Truck Association supplied more than $2,250 in transportation and meals to Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville; state Rep. Jack Lutz, R-Anderson, accepted more than $2,800 in gifts, including $609 from AT&T for Indianapolis 500 race and parade tickets; state Rep. David Niezgodski, D-South Bend, received more than $3,100 in handouts, including almost $1,700 in tickets from AT&T to attend NCAA basketball games and the Indianapolis 500.

It’s not just the amount of money that’s on the rise. In 2006, four registered lobbyists prowled Statehouse hallways for every one Indiana legislator. The ratio is now five to one.

“We get that ratio in Washington on only the very biggest issues,’’ Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, said. “On the state level, the intensity is there all the time. Lobbyists also have much more access to the lawmakers themselves in the states rather than working through staff on Capitol Hill.’’

The non-partisan center, which conducts investigative reports on public policy issues, gave Indiana an F grade in a study this year that examined legislators’ financial disclosure requirements. Indiana legislators, for example, are not required to report sources of income unless they exceed one-third of their non-legislative pay.

Buzenberg said corporations and special-interest groups have started to shift their lobbying efforts from the federal to the state level. “In so many ways, it’s easier (for lobbyists) to get things done state by state,’’ he said.

It’s especially easy in Indiana, where the General Assembly places no limit on the value of gifts its members may accept.

The legislature also serves as a farm team for lobbying firms.

In Indiana, a legislator can resign from the General Assembly one week and start work as a paid lobbyist in the Statehouse the next. Former state Rep. Mike Smith, for example, accepted his current post as president of the Casino Association of Indiana a mere two weeks ago after winning re-election to the House in 2002.