Power Trips: Guess Who Gets the Most

The Center for Public Integrity has just begun a series of reports on congressional travel titled Power Trips that takes a looks at the issue of privately funded travel for congressmen and their staff. The series started last week and the latest section, Flouting the Rule on Lobbyist-Paid Travel, was posted today.

In the summer of 2005, the Center for Public Integrity, Northwestern University's Medill News Service and American Public Media began examining disclosure documents for about 23,000 privately funded trips taken by members of Congress and staffers over a 5½-year period. While some of these trips no doubt were educational, others appeared to be thinly veiled attempts by special interests to influence lawmakers and their advisers.

You'll see the top tens and more if you make the jump.

The top ten offices that accepted the greatest value (more than $350,000 each) in privately  funded  travel in the 5+ year period are as follows:

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)
Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)
Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio)
Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas)
Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.)
Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio)
Rep. W.J. Tauzin (R-La.)*
Rep. William Thomas (R-Calif.)
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.)
Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska)

* No longer in congress.

The following offices accepted more than 200 trips in the same time period:

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)
Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio)
Rep. Larry Combest (R-Texas)*
Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas)
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.)
Rep. J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)
Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio)
Rep. W.J. Tauzin (R-La.)*
Rep. William Thomas (R-Calif.)
Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska)

Now note that being on either of lists is not an indication of wrong doing. However with the cost of the trips at $50 million for this time period and a lax ethics process (just like the Republicans love) there have been some abuses. The centers latest installment discusses six cases of lobbyist paid trips they claim to have found in the records. And, yes, the congress critters involved in these six cases are Republican. Makes you wonder about the other 84 cases, doesn't it?

Reading the report was not the smoking gun of the Republican Corruption Machine I had hoped it would be. Drat! But there is a lot of good information on the issue of travel and what meaningful ethics reform would entail.

•  Tip Jar

  Because of  the size of  your party, a 15% gratuity has been automatically added to your bill. That will be $8 trillion. Will that be cash or credit?

  by Ex Con on Mon Jun 12, 2006 at 08:33:40 PM PDT

  •  cash

    small denominations only, stuffed in brown paper bags.

    by elmo on Tue Jun 13, 2006 at 04:32:31 AM PDT

•  I don't think the committees...

  ...have been included in this.  I've read that since Pombo took over resources chair, travel for that committee's staff has doubled or even tripled.  (Fuzzy memory, could be even more...)

  by Land of Enchantment on Mon Jun 12, 2006 at 08:58:00 PM PDT