MEDILL NEWS SERVICE > Power Trips: Congress hits the road

Oregon delegation favors international trips
By YUXING ZHENG
MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON - Singapore, Belgium, Turkey, Cuba, Liberia and Lithuania may seem worlds away from the Pacific Northwest, but in the last nearly seven years, lawmakers from Oregon and their staffers have visited all of these countries - and many more.

In 2005, members of the Oregon delegation and their aides took 12 international trips, costing private interests more than $78,000, according to an analysis of congressional travel compiled by Medill News Service. International travel accounted for nearly three-quarters of the total cost of all of the trips taken that year, nearly doubling from the 37 percent a year earlier.

Lawmakers and political scientists say it's a sign Oregon is becoming a force in the global arena. International travel, they say, is crucial to a better understanding of world issues, such as terrorism, national security and trade.

It's also a sign that Oregon's federal lawmakers are gaining seniority and making a transition from Oregon-specific measures to broader, global issues. For instance, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Portland, a member of the International Relations Committee since 2001, and his staffers have been among the most frequent international travelers in the Oregon delegation over the past three years.

But in the first eight months of this year, Oregon's congressmen and their staffers reported taking only two international trips. Those two trips, valued at more than $164,000, amounted to nearly 54 percent of the cost of all 16 trips - domestic and foreign -- reported in the first eight months of this year.

The drop-off in travel mirrors a congressional trend.

Overall, members of Congress cut privately sponsored travel this year by two-thirds, according to an analysis of travel disclosure forms from Jan. 1, 2000, through mid-August 2006. They took trips worth about $2.7 million in the first eight months of this year, compared with $8.3 million in each of the two previous years.

Overall, members of Congress and their aides took nearly 26,000 trips worth $54.8 million from Jan. 1, 2000, through mid-August 2006. But a comparison of travel in March 2005 to March 2006 shows a decline from almost $2.4 million to $70,000. Many think the drop off was in part a reaction to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty in January to bribing members of Congress. Abramoff's gifts included lavish trips to Scotland and other European destinations.

Furthering education

International trips are designed to help travelers learn about an issue up close and meet one-on-one with experts who cannot travel to Washington, said R.C. Hammond, spokesman for Republican U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith.

"It's one thing to read about a tsunami disaster, it is quite another to hold the damage in your hand and speak to the victims," Hammond wrote in an e-mail. "The experience and knowledge gained through travel helps create informed public policy that directly addresses problems."

Some of Smith's international trips have been questioned. One, a three-day trip to an Irish castle in August 2003, was paid for by a lobbying firm in an apparent violation of Senate rules. After reporters made inquiries, the disclosure form was amended nearly two years later to list the lobbying firm's parent company as the sponsor, which is acceptable under Senate rules.

Following his visit to Ireland, Smith headed to London for a six-day stay organized by the same lobbyists, but paid for by another organization. The two weeks of travel, allowing Smith to give speeches and participate in roundtable discussions, totaled more than $21,000 in expenses.

Educational trips do not always produce legislation, but offer context and can help round out other bills, Hammond said. For instance, a Smith staffer's 11-day trip to India and Nepal in 2002 to learn about Tibetan refugees provided first-hand knowledge for a tariff relief measure sponsored by the senator. It included a section requiring countries, such as Nepal, to avoid human rights abuses or face increased duties on exports.

Smith's trade bill, introduced in January 2005, is languishing in the Finance Committee.

"The answer to everything is not legislation," Hammond said. "It's gaining knowledge and using it to address larger problems, whether it's opening up a new economy for Oregon or stabilizing a region so the United States is safer."

Congressional travel is both ethical and necessary, said David C. King, an ethics expert and lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

"You want a member of Congress to have full information and, often, being there on the ground and asking people what's happening is much better than any report you're going to read," King said.

Foreign policy should not be left solely in the hands of the president and his advisers, King said, and international travel by senators and representatives helps check the executive branch.

"The American people would have been well served if members of Congress had done far more international travel to Iran, Iraq and Syria five years ago," he said. "We might have some more sensible policies for the Middle East. There are very legitimate reasons to have members of Congress breathing foreign air."

Go East

Records show that at least 26 - more than 40 percent - of the international trips taken by Oregon lawmakers and aides since 2000 were to Asian destinations, primarily China and Taiwan.

Travel to Asia, many say, is a no-brainer given Oregon's strategic proximity to some of the world's fastest-growing economies. Tapping into China, India and other Southeast Asian economies as free trade agreements emerge is essential to Oregon.

"The economy of Oregon's 2nd District, and the agriculture sector in particular, is increasingly dependent on trade with Asian nations," Dallas Boyd, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, wrote in an e-mail. "Close relations between U.S. lawmakers and their Asian counterparts helps expand foreign markets for American goods and create economic opportunities for American producers."

In January, a legislative assistant who works on trade issues for Smith traveled to Thailand for nine days to see the tsunami devastation and to discuss a U.S.-Thailand free trade agreement. Smith is pushing for similar free trade agreements with other Southeast Asian countries.

Fostering international trade was also cited as the purpose of a number of trips to other destinations, such as Cyprus, Cuba and Chile.

Pricey but necessary

International travel doesn't come cheap. Since 2000, seven of the 61 privately sponsored trips abroad taken by Oregon members of Congress and their aides have totaled more than $10,000, with some members bringing along spouses and children.

Flying around the world in first-class seats costs thousands of dollars, and it's reasonable to expect international travel to be pricey, said Jerry Medler, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Oregon. Spending more than $18,000 on a two-person, 10-day international trip is acceptable -- as long as the money didn't go for such things as golf course green fees, he said.

"They weren't eating rice on the street corner, but by any middle-class standard, that's what you or I would pay for a tour," Medler said. "Admittedly, most people can't afford to pay for a tour, so that's a bigger question: are we elevating these people and saying it's okay to spend this kind of money?"

Whether these trips have an impact on what legislation is introduced or how a lawmaker votes is unclear, said Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington nonprofit that studies the impact of money in politics.

"It's impossible to know the effect of a particular trip, but if the interest groups didn't feel this was an effective way of lobbying, they wouldn't spend the money to organize them," he said.

Private groups are willing to pay the steep prices, sometimes encouraging members to bring along family members, because it gives them undivided time with a congressman, said King, the Harvard ethics expert.

"The scarcest resource on Capitol Hill isn't money - it's time," he said. "Members of congress have Attention Deficit Disorder of the highest aggregate. Holding a conference on Asian-Pacific trade in Asia is much more meaningful than it would be having a set of meetings in Washington, where the phone is always ringing."

The important thing, King said, is for these trips to be immediately and widely disclosed. Groups who pay for the trips also should disclose any interest they have in legislation.

"As long as there's complete, timely transparency, I think the abuses we've seen over the last few years will go away, and the legitimate travel and fact-finding missions will certainly be able to survive public scrutiny," King said.

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