MEDILL NEWS SERVICE > Power Trips: Congress hits the road

South Mississippi's Taylor a Light Traveler
By DAVID GIALANELLA
MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON - If you ask South Mississippi's congressman why he takes so few privately sponsored trips, he'll say that it's a matter of principle.

"People are a little skeptical about that stuff, and for good reason," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss.

Every year since 2000, Taylor's office has been dead last among the six-member Mississippi delegation in money accepted for trips from private entities. Neither he nor any of his staff had taken any privately sponsored trips this year as of mid-August, according to data compiled by Medill News Service.

In the first eight months of this year, members of Congress and their staffs accepted about 1,300 free trips worth more than $2.7 million compared with more than 3,800 trips worth more than $8 million over the same period in 2005. While some of the trips are lavish and costly, many congressmen argue that on the whole they are vital to understanding the issues they decide.

A spokeswoman for Taylor said he is "very sensitive to even the appearance of impropriety," and is critical of trips that are billed as educational but provide little more than recreation. In fact, Taylor himself has taken only three privately funded trips since 2000, all to Naples, Fla., totaling almost $4,200. That figure does not include his only trip of 2006, also to Naples; he just returned on Wednesday.

"I do one [trip] a year and it's for the business that employs the most people in south Mississippi," aside from casino gaming, Taylor said.

That business is shipbuilding.

"I'm a shipbuilding nut-I'm a made-in-America shipbuilding nut," said Taylor, who served in the Coast Guard reserve from 1971 to 1984. .

All four trips the lawmaker has taken since 2000 were financed by the American Shipbuilding Association, a trade association representing shipbuilders. Its members include Northrop Grumman, which owns Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula. According to Opensecrets.org, a campaign watchdog Web site, Northrop Grumman has spent nearly $80 million on lobbyists from 1998 to 2005, the ninth highest amount spent.

While Taylor's travel record has always been sparse, Mississippi's senators this year followed his example.

Sen. Thad Cochran's office accepted five trips worth about $1,100 in the first eight months of 2006, a drop from previous years. Since 2000 Cochran and his staff have taken more than 100 privately funded trips worth almost a quarter of a million dollars. The senator's office accepted more than $70,000 worth of free travel in both 2004 and 2005.

Cochran, as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, supports a large and powerful staff, and few of the trips were taken by the senator himself. Cochran is not the only member of Congress who has scaled back travel this year, following the January guilty plea on federal corruption charges of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who sent a number of lawmakers on lavish trips.

Sen Trent Lott and his aides also have reduced their numbers in recent years. Lott's office has filed only one travel report for 2006-a $6,500 trip to Kona, Hawaii, sponsored by the American Association of Airport Executives. And the $19,000 or so accepted in 2005 was a substantial decrease from prior years.

From 2000 through 2003, Lott's office averaged about $34,000 annually in privately sponsored travel -- the most of any of Mississippi's congressmen for that period.

Lott also often uses campaign contributions to pay for flights on private corporate jets. The senator spent more than $160,000 between 2001 and 2005, according to politicalmoneyline.com. Only former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., spent more. Edwards made about $325,000 in reimbursements.

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