Hill Leaders Often Take Corporate Jets

Three other current or former House and Senate leaders -- Blunt, Reid and former Senate minority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) -- also took in more money in campaign contributions from individual corporate political committees than they paid those companies for the use of their jets during the period studied.

Spokesmen for leaders in both parties said the jets are necessary to meet the lawmakers' busy schedules or quickly reach destinations not directly served by commercial airlines.

Arranging charter flights for such frequent travel would be too expensive, they said; they added that access to comfortable private jets had no influence on how the lawmakers voted on legislation relating to the companies.

But Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch, said the frequency of corporate plane travel shows that "members of Congress need to have their wings clipped." He said the flights amount to a private subsidy not fully reflected in public filings, one he contends is too easily exchanged for legislative favors.

"All such travel should be banned," he said.

Under House rules, if a corporate jet is scheduled to fly the route anyway and the lawmaker joins the flight, he or she must pay the equivalent first-class airfare. If the flight is arranged especially for the lawmaker, then he or she must reimburse the corporation for the full cost of the flight -- an amount that could easily exceed $10,000 for even the briefest of flights.

Senate rules differ. They call for payment of first-class rates if the route has regular commercial service, and full reimbursement if no scheduled service exists.

The House rules have been routinely abused by the leadership, according to travel records that show that virtually none of the reimbursements matched the actual cost of the unscheduled flights. A lawyer for one of the companies that provided the jets to House members, who declined to be identified because his client would not allow it, called the House rule "a trap for the unwary" because so few lawmakers understand or heed it.

On many occasions, the leaders appeared to be using the jets as a convenient way to meet constituents or reach fundraisers. Two-thirds of the flights occurred on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday, when many House members go home. The number of flights spiked in 2002, an election year when Republicans were trying to regain a majority in the Senate and expand their majority in the House.

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to take advantage of corporate jets and disclose less information about where they flew, the records show. Republican leaders took 265 flights since 2001, while Democratic leaders took 95.

[Separately, the National Republican Congressional Committee paid -- at a heavily discounted rate -- for at least 269 additional corporate flights for senior lawmakers, according to The Post's tally. But the committee would not disclose who flew or where they went. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee paid at a discount for 50 flights. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the current House minority leader, flew on nine of those flights, and then-House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) was aboard most of the others, committee spokesman Bill Burton said.]

Disclosure Limited

Assembling a full picture of the flights by House and Senate leaders is complicated by limited disclosure requirements. Key data are either kept secret by the companies or the lawmakers, or expressed in forms that are difficult for the public to retrieve. The Post's data were derived from a mixture of paper and electronically available filings by House and Senate leaders and their political action committees, plus a separate compilation of House political party-related spending.