By Dave Stafford, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
ANDERSON, Ind. — To hear state Sen. Luke Kenley tell it, his free tickets to the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby — and the free meals that came with it — were all a misunderstanding.
Kenley, R-Noblesville, accepted more than $1,000 worth of tickets and entertainment including meals from a lobbyist working on behalf of Centaur Inc., the parent company of Hoosier Park Racing and Casino. The gifts — tickets worth $876 and entertainment and meals worth $157 — were disclosed on the most recent report of lobbyist Robert J. Spolyar.
According to Centaur spokeswoman Susan Kilkenny, Spolyar purchased the tickets from Centaur and “on behalf of and to host Sen. Kenley.”
But it wasn’t Spolyar who gave the tickets to Kenley, and the senator said he didn’t request them from him. The tickets were handed to him by another lobbyist, Matt Whetstone, Kenley said. Whetstone within the past two years resigned his seat in the Indiana Legislature to become a lobbyist for a well-connected Indianapolis law firm.
“I made the request of a lobbyist that I didn’t know was connected with Centaur, that I would like Kentucky Derby tickets,” Kenley said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I didn’t realize they were from Centaur until I got down there.”
Kenley said he approached Whetstone about tickets because he knew that his former colleague had been to the Derby and other high-profile sporting events.
Whetstone said that after Kenley asked him about Derby tickets, “I was just kind of a middle man for him on that. ... I said I’d call somebody for him.”
“I told him that I wanted to pay for them, and (Whetstone) said when he gave them to me, ‘Don’t worry about it,’” Kenley said. “I said, ‘OK, Matt ... You need to send me a bill, I need to pay for them.”
But before an invoice for the May events arrived, the gifts were disclosed in Spolyar’s Oct. 22 lobbying report and detailed in published news accounts. Spolyar could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Kilkenny said that in the most recent reporting period — the year ending April 30 — Centaur lobbyists spent a reportable $8,232 on entertainment, and Hoosier Park’s lobbying entertainment expenses totaled $1,644. The Derby tickets and meals provided to Kenley came after the most recent reporting period.
As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Kenley’s authority includes matters involving Hoosier Park and Centaur.
“I don’t think it created a very good impression, and for that I made a mistake of not getting it taken care of,” Kenley said.
He said he had two points of reassurance for voters — that he will pay for the tickets and that he killed a bill that Hoosier Park wanted in the last session that would have exempted from taxation money paid to horsemen.
“I didn’t think the state was in a position to do that,” Kenley said.
Ethics reform — including proposals to tighten lobbying rules and require more detailed reporting of lobbying activities — will be a major topic in the General Assembly next year. One proposal is a “cooling-off’ period that would require former lawmakers to wait at least a year before lobbying at the Statehouse.
Whetsone, the lawmaker-turned-lobbyist, is against such a reform that he said would prevent low-paid lawmakers from trading on their expertise when they leave office. “Is it needed in a citizen legislature? I don’t think it is.”
But then, like a horseplayer, Whetstone considered the odds.
“I think it’s going to happen, if you’re asking me to handicap it,” he said.
Contact Dave Stafford: 648-4250, dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com
