INDIANAPOLIS | The transition from Indiana legislator to lobbyist is a simple, lucrative leap that three region lawmakers have made in less than a year.

Crown Point Democrat Bob Kuzman is the latest Statehouse power broker to walk through the revolving door. He resigned his House seat Tuesday, a week after starting as a governmental affairs partner at Ice Miller, the state's third-largest law firm.

While more than two-dozen states mandate a cooling-off period of at least a year, Indiana and Illinois allow former legislators to slide straight into jobs predicated upon their ability to influence past colleagues.

Gov. Mitch Daniels has imposed rules prohibiting most former executive-branch employees from lobbying state agencies for one year after leaving the administration. But the Republican governor doesn't plan to push reluctant lawmakers to follow suit.

"If the Legislature decides to lift its own standards, apply some of these same principles, I'd be happy to see that," Daniels said.

Don't expect that to happen anytime soon. Lawmakers routinely rejected past efforts to limit their career paths, including a one-year lobbying ban that languished in the House in 2005. Whenever such restrictions come up, detractors are quick to note that Indiana employs a part-time Legislature, one that pays a base salary of only $11,600 plus another $25,000 in annual expense reimbursements.

The meager base salary will nearly double in 2009 under a measure approved this spring. Still, House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, said he understands why Kuzman would abandon a rising legislative career.

"It's difficult to support a family and be down here," Bauer said.

Kuzman acknowledged, "The compensation is an issue."

"That is one of the reasons I did leave -- not the top reason," he said.

Kuzman said he plans to move his family to the Indianapolis area so he can come home to his wife and son every night.

All told, roughly two-dozen former lawmakers patrol the Statehouse as lobbyists, including at least three former House speakers.

Former East Chicago Rep. John Aguilera said he wanted to devote more time to his three teenage daughters when he retired last year. The Democrat also had a challenge of East Chicago Mayor George Pabey in mind.

But Aguilera eventually curbed his mayoral ambitions and took a $100-per-hour consulting contract with the city. The job sent him back to Indianapolis, where he earned nearly $65,000 this spring lobbying for East Chicago on riverboat gambling and property tax issues.

Ralph Ayres, a Republican from Chesterton, retired in July 2006 after 26 years in the House. The former high school teacher sought a new challenge as executive director of the Indiana Retired Teachers Association.

Lobbying for the association, he advanced a new law allowing retired teachers to temporarily return to the classroom without postponing their pensions. And he persuaded lawmakers to approve a cost-of-living increase for former educators drawing retirement benefits.

Ayres expressed mixed emotions about a potential revolving-door prohibition.

"In an ideal world, it sounds good to do that," he said. "The uniqueness of Indiana, though, is it is a part-time Legislature. Everyone has a job outside of the Legislature."