Lawmakers fly high on special interests' dime

Lawmakers fly high on special interests' dime


If the thought of a congressman traveling to Paris or Rome courtesy of a special interest group makes you angry, you're going to be peeved for the foreseeable future.

There are many unsettled issues surrounding the ethics bill now being ironed out in Congress, but even if the bill passes,
it will not prevent lawmakers or their staff members from accepting pricey trips from corporations and special interest groups.




The Center for Public Integrity has released an eye-opening report on the travel members of Congress and their aides
have accepted from businesses and groups that try to sway Congress. The report found that members of Congress and
their staffers accepted at least 23,000 trips from
January 2000 through June 2005 worth a total of almost $50 million.

And these aren't trips to the county courthouse, either.
There were at least 200 trips to Paris, 150 to Hawaii and 140 to Italy. Those picking up the tab for the travel
included Microsoft, Time Warner and the Nuclear Energy Institute.

When asked about traveling on someone else's dime, members of Congress vow that all of the trips were necessary for their work. And clearly, most of this travel comported with disclosure and ethics laws in place at the time.
(There were, however, at least 90 trips sponsored
by firms that lobby the federal government; ethics
rules forbid lobbyists from paying for congressional travel.)

But if the trips were necessary to government, then why are they financed by special interest groups? And does a congressman or staffer really need to go to a Colorado ski resort to study Social Security?

Yet if the trips irk the public, they suit Congress just
fine. Both houses of Congress have passed ethics reform efforts: The House bill asks the ethics committee to propose new travel rules, which may or may not be adopted. The Senate bill would prohibit lobbyists from going along on trips
and would tighten disclosure requirements. Both houses
talked about banning privately funded travel for lawmakers after the Jack Abramoff scandal hit; bans are included in neither of the bills.

Lawmakers can tout the value of these trips all they want,
but the real problem here is the sponsorships. Voters are
left to wonder if their traveling congressman is gathering information, or if the business sponsoring the trip is gathering influence.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060611/OPINION01/606110348/1008



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