Congressional Travel

The controversy surrounding Congressman Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) has led to increased scrutiny of privately funded travel by members of Congress. A recent report by the non-partisan research group PoliticalMoneyLine.com shows that in past five years members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have collectively accumulated about $16 million worth of travel both worldwide and in the U.S. While this type of travel is not illegal, the affiliation of lobbyists with some sponsoring organizations has caused concern about the ethical implications of paid trips.

Tony Raymond, co-founder of PoliticalMoneyLine.com, was online to answer your questions on Congressional travel and the political money trail.

A transcript follows.

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Springfield, Va.: I'm not sure I understand the news value that put an article on the front page explaining how Congressmen and Senators from both parties obeyed the current rules. If you are agitating for a change in the rules, and I agree they need to be changed, then this is not news - it is opinion or analysis and should be so labeled.

Tony Raymond: Good question. PoliticalMoneyLine collected and posted the travel database for no reason other than to disclose it. For anyone to look at Congressional travel, they must go to Capitol Hill, locate the obscure disclosure offices and then thumb through volumes of paper or search documents one at a time. We collect all kinds of data about campaigns and lobbying and put it all on the web. How people chose to use it is up to them.

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Harrisburg, Pa.: Do you believe it is time for public financing of campaigns in order to remove the advantages that contributors receive?

Tony Raymond: Another excellent question. PoliticalMoneyLine doesn't advocate changes to rules or laws - though we are big believers in disclosure :-) We try to aggregate information that is difficult to find, or we combine data filed at different Government offices and make it searchable. We leave the advocacy to the many advocacy groups here in town.

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Silver Spring, Md.: To paraphrase Renault in Casablanca, "I'm shocked, shocked to find traveling is going on here!" Come on, give us a break! And it is not going to get any better anytime soon.

Tony Raymond: :-) At least there's a way to see the travel that goes on. Without the disclosure, it'd be tough to even decide if it's good or bad for Members to do it.

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Washington, D.C.: How do our elected officials justify the rules that allow them to conduct business that looks like receiving contributions and perks for influence? To me this is the definition of corruption. People and corporations do not give away money for nothing, they expect a return on their investment.

Tony Raymond: That's certainly one way of looking at it. Many Members have said that without the travel, they'd be less informed on making important decisions. Fortunately, now you can look at each of the trips and try to decide if it was worth it. We plan to continue to update the travel database every two weeks. An update is due on Monday.

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Cocoa Beach, Fla: As a young Marine in the early 80's, I worked in the Senate Liaison Office in the RSOB on the Hill and went on many overseas CODELs as an escort. It was very public back then and all seemed legit at least on the Senate Side. Has the traveling increased since then? And have they become "junkets" now?

Tony Raymond: Great question. The public travel (CODELs) are also available on our site. The number doesn't seem to have gone up dramatically. We find that the description of the travel is fairly revealing as to the purpose of the trip...as to whether or not these are junkets, I'd let you be the judge :-)

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They'd be less informed on making important decisions.: Uh...no. They already have an ample budget for commercial airline travel. So giving up the corporate jets has nothing to do with that.

Tony Raymond: You're talking about the excellent story in the Post today...actually, that kind of travel is difficult to detect. Unlike the private sponsored travel and CODELs that require separate filings, this travel can only hinted at through the campaign disclosures (as found on our site.) The report today relied heavily on disbursements disclosed in campaign reports.

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Arlington, Va.: This exposure of travel by Congressmen shows that things that are not necessarily illegal have an unsettling effect. This reminds me of the similarly legal House overdraft "scandal" which resulted in changes in the rules and in some Congressman losing their seats.

Tony Raymond: It's interesting to see all of the reaction to the travel database. Many folks are unfazed by it...others think it's an outrage. The good thing about all this is that the disclosure gets us interested in what our reps are doing...

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Whetstone, Ariz: This story has been a bit puzzling from the beginning. It leads me to only one conclusion. The Democrats are looking for a scapegoat before this issue comes to a head and it takes out one of the big enemies on the right at the same time. A two for one shot. Not bad!

The right did the same thing during the House postal scandal. In this case they took out a powerful behind the scenes player in the name of Massachusetts Representative Joe Early.

Early was actually among the least guilty, just as I believe DeLay is in this case. As in the postal scandal, all are guilty of the same accusations, but one is being sacrificed to make the issue go away.

Do you see the same comparisons? Am I off base in the comparisons?

Tony Raymond: My partner, Kent Cooper, and I have been in DC long enough to know that you can never tell where things might end up. We put out a lot of information...some of it, we think, more important than other items - but you never know what resonates.

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Tony Raymond: There were a number of excellent questions I wasn't able to get to. I appreciate everyone who took time out to participate. Thanks to the Washington Post for letting me stop by...isn't the Internet great? My partner Kent Cooper and I have received a lot of feedback from our Congressional travel database, and we enjoy seeing how people use the things we produce. Although our site is subscription based, almost 40% is free to the public...hopefully, you can take some time to visit. Again, thanks to all of you!

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