Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN – Two days after Pat Haggerty relinquished the El Paso legislative seat he'd held for 20 years, he was back to work at the Capitol, this time for the tobacco firm Reynolds American.

Of the 23 state lawmakers who retired or lost their elections in 2008, six have registered as lobbyists and are working their former colleagues on the behalf of paying clients.

"The fact is that I didn't have much of a choice," said Haggerty, a real estate broker who lost his GOP primary last March.

Known for his blunt talk, Haggerty called his two decades of legislative knowledge a valuable commodity. At the same time, he cited others who have traded in their public roles to represent the companies they regulated. "Now that's gaming the system," he said.

Haggerty, who concentrated on incarceration issues as a lawmaker, said that he is not representing prison contractors.

Would he? "Sure, if they wanted to buy my expertise. But nobody has," said Haggerty, whose clients so far are paying him as much as $300,000 to represent their interests.

Thirty-one other states require a sitting-out period for former lawmakers before they can become lobbyists, but not Texas. While anti-revolving door bills are filed routinely, none has made it out of committee.

"And the reason is that there are a lot of lawmakers who are already thinking of their next career and so they keep the lobby door open," said Andrew Wheat of the legal watchdog group Texans for Public Justice.

He said it is easy for lawmakers to convert their connections, friendships and knowledge of the system into a benefit for paying clients. And because Texas places no time limits, a lawmaker could legally pass a bill on behalf of a special interest and literally resign and go to work for it the next day.

Because of the temptation, he said, lawmakers might not challenge the big companies that hire scores of lobbyists, because they "wouldn't want to stomp on the toes of a possible future employer."

And the public has the right to know at what point lawmakers "morph" into thinking like lobbyists. "Is it while they're still sitting on the floor of the Legislature? The second they walk out the door?" Wheat asked.

Former Sen. Kyle Janek, a physician, said lobbying was not foremost on his mind when he resigned last summer. He was commuting between his Galveston district and Austin, and it became too hard for him and his wife to raise three youngsters.

So he took a job with an Austin biotech firm. But the idea of lobbying became too much of a draw. He now has clients with medical interests that are paying him between $260,000 and $475,000.

His 14 years in the House and Senate only matter so much, he said.

"I would speculate most lawmakers understand it's not who's bringing you the information; it's whether the information is good and credible," Janek said.

Twenty-year GOP House veteran Tony Goolsby said that after he lost the November election in Dallas, he thought lobbying would "be a good thing to be exposed to."

He said he never worried about the revolving door. "Everybody has to make a living," he said.

He's lined up one contract with AT&T and is working on two others.

After he spent two decades in Austin studying the issues and learning the legislative process, it's only fair that he should use what he's learned, he said.

"I feel anything I receive, I will have earned it, because there is no such thing as a free lunch – unless the lobby's paying for it," he said with a laugh.