Ethics rules curb but don’t end trips
Some in Congress take advantage of loopholes to travel
WASHINGTON - Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, toured a prince’s vineyard and castle in Liechtenstein and spent an afternoon at a ski resort in the Alps - all at the expense of a group of European companies.
Representative Danny K. Davis, Democrat of Illinois, got the dignitary treatment when a big donor flew him to Inner Mongolia to lobby for a new medical supplies factory in rural China.
And Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican of Florida, on another privately sponsored trip, stayed at the historic King David Hotel in Jerusalem and attended a gala party near the Western Wall as part of a weeklong conference that lobbyists and executives paid as much as $18,500 to attend.
Despite changes intended to curb congressional junkets, some lawmakers and even their families continue to take trips hosted by private groups and companies that revel in their access to Washington power brokers.
An examination by The New York Times of 1,150 trips shows that some of them bent or broke rules adopted in 2007 to limit corporate influence in Washington. Others exploited glaring loopholes in the guidelines, enacted with much fanfare after scandals involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
While lobbyists are not supposed to pay for a lawmaker’s travel, for example, Sensenbrenner’s $14,708 trip to Liechtenstein and Germany in 2009 was organized by a nonprofit group whose president is a lobbyist. It was underwritten by European companies that, in many cases, lobby in the United States.
Another rule limits travel paid for by companies employing lobbyists to just two nights. This forced Davis to made a quick turnaround when he flew to China this year. He changed clothes in a van on a highway before meeting with officials there.
Davis said he was exhausted by the end of his journey. He said he saw nothing wrong with a businessman and big financial contributor flying him to help close a private business deal.
“He’s a guy that I really admire,’’ Davis said of Willie Wilson, president of Omar Medical Supplies, which got its factory. Still, Davis acknowledged, “It’s not going to create jobs in Illinois.’’
The rules are filled with odd contradictions. Lobbyists themselves are not allowed to pay for trips, but their corporate clients can. And lobbyists are permitted to give huge sums to nonprofit groups that can sponsor travel. They can also travel to destinations and meet the lawmakers once they get there, though they cannot go on the same plane.
Seizing on the loopholes, lobbyists and the companies that employ them are still underwriting trips by dozens of members of Congress, particularly those in the House, the Times review shows. The companies finance much of this travel indirectly, getting around the spirit of the rules by giving money to nonprofits, some of which seem to exist largely to sponsor trips. In fact, the rules may have had the unexpected effect of obscuring who is actually paying for a lawmaker’s junket.
The rules have had some real impact. Privately financed travel for members of the House has dropped to fewer than 400 trips in the first 10 months of this year, compared with 1,100 in the same period in 2005.
The drop in Senate travel has been even greater: Senators took 24 trips in the first 10 months of this year, compared with 189 in the same period in 2005. Democrats and Republicans traveled proportionate to their numbers in Congress.
