From the New York Times:

Trip Study Finds More Was Spent on Aides Than Lawmakers
By KATE PHILLIPS

Published: June 6, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 5 — Congressional aides took $30 million in trips paid for by private groups from 2000 through mid-2005, surpassing the privately sponsored travel of their bosses by nearly $10 million over the same time, according to a new analysis of publicly disclosed travel expenses.

Together, aides and members of the House and Senate filed 23,000 public disclosure forms on their individual trips, the survey found, for an estimated price tag of about $50 million. Among the most popular destinations were Paris (at least 200 times), Hawaii (150) and Italy (140).

Congressional travel paid for by outside organizations like trade groups and corporations has been under intense scrutiny following scandals involving the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. While much attention has been focused on elected officials and corporate jet travel with lobbyists, the new study, conducted by the Center for Public Integrity, Medill News Service of Northwestern University and American Public Media programs, is the most extensive in recent years because it tallied the costs, purpose and destinations of trips by Congressional aides and politicians.

The study concluded that about 90 of the trips were paid for by lobbyists, which is an ethical violation, during the five and a half years examined. About 500 trips cost $10,000 or more each, and 16 cost $25,000 or more apiece, the study showed. About $20 million was spent on overseas travel.

Wendell Rawls, acting executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan group that has conducted many investigations of money and politics over the years, said Monday that some trips could be considered legitimate for educational purposes. But he pointed out that the study found multiple ethics violations from members of both political parties, and that many trips were paid for by corporations that had business interests before Congress.

Mr. Rawls also questioned the amount of spending on some trips. For example, he said, former Representative Thomas Bliley, Republican of Virginia, and his wife went to London at a cost of $31,171 for four days in July 2000. Their air travel tickets were valued at $11,938.49 each, and were paid for by the Brown and Williamson tobacco company. The former congressman's public filings listed the purpose of the trip as meetings with officials from British American Tobacco and other trade officials.

"I would ask if every constituent for Representative Bliley had the same access as the people at Brown, Williamson," Mr. Rawls said of the former chairman of the House Commerce Committee. Mr. Bliley could not be reached for comment.

The study turned up other interesting educational travel and irregularities. Congressman Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, has amended his forms for a trip in 2000 to Cuba, where he met with Fidel Castro. He first violated ethics rules by accepting travel expenses for his son and his wife, on a trip that was supposed to address the plight of endangered birds. But confronted with the center's findings, Mr. Rangel recently reimbursed and identified additional sponsors for his son's travel and for the trip; the sponsors included one of his longtime fund-raisers, John Catsimatidis of Gristede's Foods in New York, and the Cuban government. George A. Dalley, Mr. Rangel's chief of staff, said he erred in not knowing the reporting rules.

The study singled out General Atomics, a company based in San Diego that developed the Predator, the unmanned spy plane, because it spent more — $660,000 — on Congressional travel than any other corporation on lone-sponsor trips. The study noted that General Atomics seemed to favor trips for Congressional staff members and aides. Among those on trips to Turkey in 2004 or to Australia in 2005 were aides to Representative Randy Cunningham, a California Republican who has since been convicted of bribery and other crimes, and an aide to Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is minority leader.

The study said that some aides sat in on sales meetings that company officials held with foreign government officials, although the aides later told the survey's interviewers that they did not engage in sales pitches.

Gary Hopper, a vice president for General Atomics' Washington offices, said: "We wouldn't mix any kind of sales situation with Congressional staff there. I know that's a bone of contention with a lot of people out there but there was not in any way a quid pro quo."

Democrats, Republicans and lobbying associations all say that travel has slowed since the scandals over the Scotland golfing trips by Representative Tom DeLay received headlines last year and put a spotlight on Congressional travel.

Paul A. Miller, the president of the American League of Lobbyists, defended travel by lobbyists and elected officials. "Since the scandal, a lot of the travel has ceased to exist or members of Congress have been very diligent by what trips we go on," Mr. Miller said. "These trips are valuable experiences for members of Congress and their staffs. If the public doesn't pay for it and the private sector doesn't pay for it, the government isn't going to pick up the tab for it."

The House and Senate have passed legislation that would require additional disclosure for lobbying, but neither bill would place a permanent ban on privately sponsored travel. It is unclear what will emerge from a House-Senate conference committee.

The Center for Public Integrity was forced last year to withdraw a study it conducted on White House travel because of a flawed database that inflated the amount of money spent as well as the number of staff members. To avoid such errors this time, Mr. Rawls said the center pored over the 26,000 pages of travel documents individually, hired outside consultants to comb the data and the findings, and made conservative estimates of the data tallies.