An analysis of congressional trips by Medill News Service in partnership with American Public Media's Marketplace program and American RadioWorks found that private interests spent about $14.4 million since Jan.1, 2000, to send House and Senate members on more than 4,800 trips.

The four-month investigation of congressional travel disclosure forms indicated rules rarely are enforced. Forms are often incomplete, and rules are violated - without punishment.

"The existence of the[gentleman's agreement] was part of the reason for low enforcement," said Charles Tiefer, solicitor of the House from 1984 to 1995.

Rules require members to disclose where they go, when they took the trip, who sponsored it and costs for transportation, lodging meals and other expenses.

But since 2000, House and Senate members have accepted about 200 trips worth approximately $400,000 and failed to disclose where they went.

House members have taken nearly 20 trips worth about $18,000 paid for by sponsors whose identities were not disclosed in the reports. And there rarely is any record of the ethics committee staff seeking clarification.

"This is going to be one of those dirty little secrets of Washington," said James Benton, research analyst on ethics issues for Common Cause. "There is a gap between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The intentions are good, but the execution is fairly atrocious."

Because of public perception that special interest groups held too much influence over Congress, both chambers tightened the gift and travel rules in1995.

Most significantly, the stricter rules require prompt public disclosure of privately sponsored trips, including a monetary breakdown of the expenses paid. Previously, lawmakers had only listed these trips on their annual financial disclosure statements, but now they have to file disclosure forms within 30 days. However, in the Senate, members have the option of filing the 30-day forms or listing trips on their annual disclosure statements; most choose the 30-day forms.

Around time of the gift rule reforms, the House was rife with scandal.

Partisan ethics battles, including the reprimand and $300,000 fine of Newt Gingrich for misuse of tax-exempt money to fund a partisan college course, led to the approval in 1997 of rules barring outsiders from filing ethics complaints.

The new rules and politically charged atmosphere sparked a gentleman's agreement among House members that they would refrain from filing ethics complaints against one another. And in 2000, the House ethics committee decided to keep all its investigations private.

House members had filed no complaint in seven years, until Rep. Chris Bell, D-Texas, broke the so-called truce in June, accusing Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas of "bribery, extortion, fraud, money laundering and the abuse of power."

Over the past seven years, the House ethics committee initiated 18 inquiries on its own, according to a committee memorandum.

"When the system is set up to allow gentleman's agreements and members avoid policing each other, then you can't trust Congress," said James Benton, research analyst on ethics issues for Common Cause. "No one is holding the members of the House of Representatives accountable."

Staffers on the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct for the House said that every form is reviewed. According to an ethics committee memorandum dated March 11, 2004, staff members had reviewed more than 2,300 financial disclosure statements since Jan. 1, 2003 - the start of the current Congress.

"The vast majority of the disclosure problems come about as a combination of sloppiness and inattention and a very low enforcement and review environment," said Tiefer, author of the book Veering Right.

Staffers for lawmakers typically fill out the disclosure forms. But with a high turnover rate in support positions, they often are not well acquainted with the rules, Tiefer said.

And with low enforcement by the ethics committees, there is not pressure to fill out the forms correctly.

"They have tasks of greater seriousness," he said. "Financial disclosure is not something the congressman is going to yell at them about."

Some errors or omissions may be due to simple carelessness. But even forms that suggest possible rule violations often go unquestioned by the ethics committee.

For example, under travel rules, members may only accept entertainment expenses of less than $50 from any one source.

But Rep. Philip Crane, R-Ill., disclosed a $90 spa visit by his wife during a trip to the Caribbean in January 2003. and $300 for golf fees on a trip to Boca Raton, Fla., in April 2003.

According to Tami Stough, his spokeswoman, staffers filling out the forms were unfamiliar with the travel rules and chose to the safe path, to "disclose more and explain later," Stough said. But the ethics committee never inquired about the expenses.

"Nothing came of it," she said.

On the Senate side, the ethics committee is authorized to review the forms, and committee staffers say that they do. Yet, they refused to comment on the procedures for such review or whether every form is examined.

Even ethics committee members seem uncertain about the rules, which specify that only a spouse or child, but not both, may accompany senators.

Her husband and twin boys accompanied senate ethics committee member Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., on a $3,200 trip sponsored by the Democratic Leadership Council to Mackinac Island, Mich., for two days in September 2003.

Lincoln's spokesman, Drew Goesl, said the children added no extra expenses, because. the chartered plane had empty seats and the twins shared a room with their parents and did not participate in the events or meals.

"[Lincoln] very rarely goes on trips, and when she does, she makes every effort to comply with the ethics rules," he said.

Goesl said Lincoln plans to write the ethics committee to determine if her interpretation of the rules is correct.

Review of the congressional disclosure forms indicated at least 48 other members either someone accompany them in violation of the rules, such as a friend or sibling, or had a spouse and child along when rules allow one or the other, not both.

But House ethics committee staff said the committee sometimes grants waivers.

While the forms are publicly disclosed, they are available only in person in the Senate Office of Public Records and the House Legislative Resource Center.

"It's not really a safeguard in this case," Benton said. "You cannot get access to them on the Web. What that means if you want to find out anything on travel records, you have only one place in the entire country to go to. It's not enough to file these records and make them public….They need to be made more accessible."

Last year, the House relaxed some rules. Only months before a fund-raiser for DeLay's charity foundation, the House decided members could accept travel to charity events, provided the charity was paying the expenses itself. Since the strengthening of the rules in 1995, congressmen had been prohibited from accepting free trips to charity events, such as golf excursions and tennis tournaments.

Some say making the rules stricter would be a bad idea.

"I think the rules are such that they discourage travel," said Bill Frenzel, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is now a Brookings Institution fellow. "They are regarded with some fear."

The result is that lawmakers may be hesitant to travel abroad for purely educational purposes, he said. Foreign governments are allowed to pay for trips for members of Congress, but only under limited circumstances.

"The folks back home are often undiscriminating in their views of travel," Tiefer said. "[They] would not be able to separate the needed beneficial travel from travel that is sponsored by industry special interest groups."

Making the disclosure rules stricter, such as requiring congressmen to attach receipts, would only further discourage constructive travel, he said.

But putting the forms online would add no extra burden to members and would perhaps lead to the reports being completed more accurately, Tiefer said.

"It's not hard to acquire a sense of the rules," he said. "If there is a high enforcement environment, they do. If there is a low enforcement environment, they will push the envelope."

Stronger enforcement could reduce the likelihood of special interests influencing lawmakers through extravagant trips and gifts.

"I think this issue needs attention," Tiefer said. "This seems to be a problem that's getting worse from neglect. The Congress acts every year on vital issues to industry, and one has to expect that industry will buy as much influence as it can."

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