Two months before U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson found himself in hot water for comparing Jewish settlers in the disputed West Bank to “termites,” the Lithonia Democrat and his wife embarked on a six-day trip to the territory funded by a pro-Palestinian group.
MIFTA, an organization that advocates for an independent and democratic Palestinian state, and the nonprofit American Global Institute picked up the more than $13,000 tab for the five-term congressman and his wife, DeKalb County Commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson, to travel to Ramallah and Jerusalem in late May along with a handful of other House Democrats.
Under House and Senate rules, the excursion was acceptable. Lawmakers can embark on privately sponsored trips in the U.S. and abroad for up to a week as long as they're signed off on by a congressional ethics panel, are lobbyist-free and are educational in nature.
Johnson is is one of Congress’ most prolific travelers — he’s taken more privately funded trips than any other lawmaker so far in 2015 and 2016, according to the nonpartisan LegiStorm. Another Georgia lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Pooler, logged the second-highest number of privately funded trips in all of Congress during that period. But the pair is hardly alone.
Lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate have embarked on 595 privately funded trips with a total price tag of more than $4.2 million during the past 20 months, according to LegiStorm's records. Members of their staffs have also traveled on other groups' dimes.
Proponents say such congressional travel enriches lawmakers’ work and helps make them better legislators. But such trips have also prompted criticism for being light on the education and little more than thinly veiled attempts to peddle influence on Capitol Hill.
The ethics of travel
There are many perks to being a member of Congress, and travel is one of them.
Separate from privately funded trips, there are taxpayer-funded congressional delegation excursions arranged through the Pentagon and State Department and travel paid for through a lawmaker’s official allowance. Campaigns can underwrite travel through political action committees, or PACs, and organizations such as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Foreign governments also can pay for a lawmaker or a member of his or her staff to go abroad, but the trips must comply with several federal laws.
The rules for privately funded trips were significantly tightened a decade ago following a series of corruption scandals, embodied by former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who whisked lawmakers off to opulent golf outings in Scotland.
Under the changes approved in 2007, privately funded travel requires advance approval and lawmakers must file disclosures on what was spent on their behalf and fill out a questionnaire.
Proponents say the safeguards are working.
“Some people think (the trips) sound like boondoggles, but the truth is they often have a great deal of value,” said Kenneth Gross, an attorney and expert on political gift and lobbying rules. “You get to meet foreign delegations, you get to travel with colleagues. It may be useful meeting people abroad and other places in the U.S., groups you wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to meet, constituents or groups that are part of the regulated community.”
Not everyone agrees.
Craig Holman, a lobbyist at the consumer rights-focused advocacy group Public Citizen, said many lobbying organizations have established nonprofits with the sole purpose of paying for lawmaker trips abroad, which they can no longer do directly. He said congressional ethics panels are also lax when scrutinizing trips.
“People are figuring out how to get around the rules and we’re seeing them slowly, slowly erode,” Holman said. “We’ve seen a steady rise in the number of privately sponsored trips since we slashed it in 2006 and 2007.”
Georgia lawmakers hit the airport
Among the 16 members of Georgia’s congressional delegation, Johnson has logged the most private trips and travel expenses — nearly $41,000 across 10 trips over the past 20 months.
In addition to his trip to the West Bank, which was billed as an opportunity to meet with “Palestinian officials and business and community leaders to learn more about the regional economy, politics and culture,” Johnson ventured to Tokyo in January, a trek underwritten by the U.S.-Japan-South Korea Legislative Exchange Program that cost nearly $15,000. He also took domestic trips in conjunction with his leadership role with the Congressional Black Caucus’ Political Education and Leadership Institute.
“Because the congressman has a broad range of policy ideas and proposals that he has crafted into legislation and introduced, he believes travel and the exchange of ideas are an important part of the job,” a spokesman said in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“As a board member of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, ranking member of a Judiciary subcommittee and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, it’s his duty to travel to help establish legislative agendas and progressive policies,” the spokesman continued, adding that Johnson will continue with a “robust travel schedule as long as he finds it useful to his decision-making and helps him do his job.”
Johnson isn’t the only Georgia lawmaker to take advantage of free trips.
Carter, a freshman, took eight trips over the past 20 months with a cumulative price tag of about $30,000.
Most of Carter’s travels were domestic — half were for speaking engagements at various pharmacist conferences, and he twice attended policy conventions held by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank.
“As the only pharmacist in Congress, Congressman Carter is committed to addressing issues like rising drug prices and opioid addiction. By engaging with individuals who deal with these issues day in and day out he’s better able to affect good public policy,” Carter’s spokeswoman said in a statement to the AJC. She said some of those ideas garnered from those visits helped him in his committee work and efforts on opioid legislation.
Carter also took a $22,704 trip to Israel with his wife sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation, a charity closely affiliated with the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC.
Georgia Republican U.S. Reps. Barry Loudermilk of Cassville and Rick Allen of Evans and their spouses also went on the same trip in August 2015, which was billed as a series of “events and educational briefings to educate members of Congress about the U.S.-Israeli relationship.” The excursion included stops in Jerusalem, Ramallah and a kibbutz in the Negev Desert about three miles east of the Gaza Strip. U.S. Sen. David Perdue went on a similar trip earlier that year.
Overall, Georgia’s senators and congressmen from both sides of the aisle have accepted more than $148,000 in privately funded trips for themselves and occasionally their spouses over the past 20 months. Members of their staffs have also disclosed $200,000 worth of such trips during the same time period.
Public Citizen’s Holman raised questions about travel involving lawmakers’ families.
“The fact that they bring their spouses means to me that this is not an educational trip. This clearly is a vacation,” he said. “So they go with their spouse, have a great time, stay in five-star hotels, get wined and dined, and just have an excellent time.”
Not all Georgia congressmen went on privately funded trips. Seven of the 16 members in the delegation refrained. Those lawmakers were Republican U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, Republican U.S. Reps. Doug Collins, Tom Graves, Austin Scott and Rob Woodall, and Democratic U.S. Reps. John Lewis and David Scott.
About the Author
