WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — Members of Congress and their staffers rebounded from pandemic travel anxiety in 2022, accepting more than $6.6 million worth of airline tickets, hotel rooms and meals paid for by special interest groups.
The total of 1,785 trips that were paid for by outside organizations last year was up from 829 trips in 2021, and 321 in 2020, when travel was limited by coronavirus restrictions, according to a database of disclosures compiled by the nonpartisan data service LegiStorm LLC.
Destinations included more than 40 foreign countries, including Israel, Spain and Japan, as well as U.S. cities such as Las Vegas, New Orleans and Miami.
Picking up the tab for lawmakers and members of their staffs were some of the most active lobbying groups in Washington, like the Motion Picture Association Inc., the American Gaming Association, the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association and a charitable organization affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Some of the lawmakers took spouses and other family members, also free-of-cost, on the excursions. Kevin McCarthy, now the House speaker, brought his mother along on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel.
“Privately sponsored travel for members of Congress is one of the most effective tools of influence-peddling by businesses and special interest groups,” Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, a nonpartisan group that emphasizes government accountability. “It is noteworthy that these trips are almost always to ideal vacation spots and not to troubled lands, such as Ukraine.”
The trips are separate from taxpayer-paid congressional delegation travel, typically taken overseas and involve military transportation.
The $26,847 tab for McCarthy and his mother, Roberta McCarthy, was picked up by the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation. The foundation also paid $13,805 for current House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York to participate in all-Democratic delegation trip to Israel at about the same time (the Republicans had their own).
McCarthy didn’t respond to a request for comment. But in his application for the trip to the House Ethics Committee, he described it as an “educational trip to meet officials and representatives to get updates and better understand the current geopolitical, economic, and regional challenges in this important area, and their effect on our national security.”
