North Carolina’s congressional delegation and their families have taken 160 trips paid for by private individuals or organizations since 2000. The total cost of nearly $600,000 ranges from $200 domestic overnights to week-long visits to Europe and Asia that approach $20,000 per member.
While such figures may be eye-popping to voters sweating at the gas pumps this summers, elected officials and private organizations say the practice is legitimate and will continue.
Ethics rules require members of Congress to file prompt disclosures of any travel paid for by private individuals or organizations. The new rules make a distinction between “golf junkets with lobbyists,” as one congressman’s office described it, and trips connected with official duties, even if broader than the member’s committee assignments.
Rep. Mel Watt, D-12th, has taken 41 privately funded trips since 2002, the most of any N.C. member of Congress. Many of them functional, Watt’s travels include a commencement address he gave at Fisk University, a speaking engagement at the NAACP national convention, and numerous events with the Congressional Black Caucus.
The Aspen Institute, a broad-spectrum policy organization in Washington, D.C, has funded several trips. Aspen’s president, Walter Isaacson, says on the organization’s Web site that Aspen’s educational programs “offer a chance for restorative reflection on the meaning of the good life, leadership, and sound public policy.”
Aspen’s conferences are often in exotic locales and frequently near resorts. In one seven-month period, Aspen conducted a conference on educational reform in Cancun; an environmental event in Lausanne, Switzerland; and a conference on Brazil staged at Grand Exuma Island. Watt attended all three.
Rep. Bob Etheridge, D-2nd, participated in another educational conference at Montego Bay, Jamaica, and an event to discuss the No Child Left Behind law, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The wide dispersal of locations, and their expensive accommodations, reflect Aspen’s international outlook, but they have made Aspen the largest private contributor for travel on Capitol Hill. The organization has invested $5.2 million since 2000, outspending the second-largest contributor by two to one. Aspen also accounts for $207,000 worth, or more than one-third, of the travel taken by North Carolina’s delegation.
Half of that was spent on a single congressman, Rep. David Price, D-4th. Price has taken 11 trips on Aspen’s tab, including a $17,000 fact-finding trip to China in 2002 and a $14,000 trek to London and Berlin last year. Other trips reported as “fact finding” took Price to Honolulu, Puerta Vallarta, and British Columbia. The total cost of his Aspen-funded trips since 2001 totals nearly $103,000.
His press secretary, Paul Cox, said that as a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, Price “is always interested in critical international relations and diplomatic ties throughout the world,” and that “meeting with foreign leaders and learning what our government is doing in foreign countries” is critical to that role. Price wants other congressmen to be “well-versed in the interests we have throughout the world,” and finds the Aspen Institute’s events on Capitol Hill and abroad useful, Cox said.
Aspen is not the only travel-sponsoring organization around the Capitol, and Democrats are not the only guests. The Nuclear Energy Institute spent $35,320 to send former Rep. Richard Burr, R-5th, on two weeklong trips to visit French and Spanish nuclear facilities while he was a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Reps. Patrick McHenry, R-10th, Virginia Foxx, 5th, and Robin Hayes, R-8th, have been guests of the American Israel Education Foundation. They each averaged $11,453 to visit Tel Aviv.
One official who is not taking many trips is Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Her press secretary, Stuart Ramsey, said it was a matter of priorities. “During breaks in the Senate schedule,” Ramsey said, “Sen. Dole prefers to be in North Carolina meeting with citizens, business leaders, and local officials and working directly with her constituency to address the most pressing issues facing our state.”
Burr also, since his election to the Senate in 2004, has lightened his travel, reporting only a single $327 trip to speak at a Lutheran pastors’ conference last January.
Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation said that senators have much less time than House members to travel. Darling, who is director of Senate relations for the conservative think tank, said, “We are reasonably broad in who we attempt to invite to these events, [but] it’s hard with senators because their schedules are so booked. We find we have to ask quite a few, and get just a handful.”
House members attend most of their events, he said, because their schedules are more flexible. Heritage has sponsored Reps. Sue Myrick, R-9th, Foxx, and McHenry for a total of 10 events since 2001, all but one of them in Baltimore and none of them more than $900.
The new travel rules have not affected Heritage’s activities, because Heritage is not engaged in lobbying, Darling said. “We have not seen an uptick nor a downtick in our attendance” since the rules took effect, he said.
Cox said Price not only supported the new rules, he authored part of them. “The intent of the changes was to eliminate golf junkets and time with lobbyists,” he said. “That’s a far cry from an academic exchange program, like the Aspen trips. There’s a very wide disparity.”
Price has not taken part in recent Aspen events, Cox said, because his duties have “greatly increased.” As chairman of the House Democracy Assistance Committee, Price has traveled to hotspots in the Middle East — at government expense, rather than private.
But Cox expressed Price’s appreciation for the Aspen’s efforts. “He’s always on the lookout if there’s an Aspen program that will help him serve better in Congress,” Cox said.
Hal Young is a contributing editor of Carolina Journal.