LegiStorm: Transparency's Sidekick

House Democrats announced yesterday they would ban all earmarks to for-profit companies. The Republicans are set to raise the stakes: Roll Call reports the GOP plans to call for a total earmark ban tomorrow.

No matter what the parties do in the House of Representatives, however, critics say it won't be enough. The Senate is unlikely to make any similar move, and even the announced House earmark restrictions might not survive, considering lawmakers especially like to steer money toward their home districts in an election year.

The battle over which party would take a strong stand against earmarks began Wednesday when Democrats said all earmark requests benefiting for-profit companies would be rejected, and proposed that the House appropriations committee audit at least 5 percent of earmarks going to non-profits.

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Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas) has filed disclosure forms for three trips to China – the earliest of which was 11 months ago, and the oldest nearly two years ago - after we raised questions about his travels.

Ortiz had filed pre-travel paperwork with the House ethics committee which cleared all the trips, but he had not filed the required post-trip disclosures until after LegiStorm highlighted the travel. Ortiz had listed the trips on his personal financial disclosures but these lack the detail of post-trip forms.

The jaunts to China were paid for by the Robstown Improvement Development Corp., a development authority for his hometown. Roll Call followed up LegiStorm's story and found that Ortiz had also secured more than $5 million in funding for the organization's Robstown Trade Processing and Inland Center. The development authority listed the purpose of Ortiz's trips as promotion of the trade center.

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Members of the House of Representatives voted to forego a pay raise this year, but they didn't make the same choice when it came to their budgets for official expenses - including staff salaries.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel took a look at how Florida's congressional delegation used their Member's Representational Allowance – the money each representative is allotted to pay for staff salaries and official expenses – which were increased 5 percent last year. The newspaper found a number of interesting expenditures in the data, including Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) paying a staffer who also happens to be his longtime girlfriend nearly the maximum allowable salary.

Hastings' girlfriend Patricia Graham Williams, a deputy district director, made nearly $160,000 in 2009. The maximum allowable salary for a House staffer in 2009 was $168,411. Congress has nepotism rules preventing members from hiring family members, but unmarried partners are not covered.

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LegiStorm has added the House of Representatives 2009 fourth quarter salary data to our database, one of the final steps in compiling a complete set of congressional information for the past year.

In addition to House salaries, we now have records for all privately financed trips and personal financial disclosures for members and staff that were released in 2009. We have also updated our foreign gifts section with the most recent data, covering the House through the end of last year.

The newest salary data includes all House staff from Oct. 1-Dec. 31, 2009. The House releases its data every quarter. The Senate releases data every six months, which means the Senate salaries for the end of 2009 will not be available until after the current period ends at the end of March.

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Congressional lawmakers regularly flout rules requiring them to return unspent per diem for official trips. They didn't even bother to hide it from the Wall Street Journal, which ran a story about the practice today.

Members of Congress are given up to $250 a day to cover meals and expenses, paid by taxpayers, when on official business. They are supposed to return any extra money at the end of the trip, but several told the Journal they often keep the extra cash, spend it on gifts or use it to cover their spouse's expenses.

Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas) went so far as to insinuate many members take trips just for the cash reward:

"If that was the policy, you could never get many members traveling," said Ortiz of the requirement to return excess funds.

The Journal looked a taxpayer-funded trips from the past two years and found congressmen had taken 5,300 travel days to 130 countries. House members received between $375,000 and $625,000 in per deim over that period, the paper estimated. Senate numbers could not be estimated.

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Congressional bonuses continue to make the news, especially as the lawmakers giving bonuses are decrying corporate payouts or talking about deficit reduction.

Indianapolis TV station 6News reported Monday that Indiana's congressional delegation gave more than $600,000 in year-end bonuses to staff from 2006 through 2008. Many of the lawmakers gave bonuses at the same time they were denouncing corporate bonuses, according to the station.  

All bonuses to staff come out of the members' represenatational allowance, which covers all expenses for the congressional office. Any amount not spent would be returned to the U.S. Treasury.

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Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) has been admonished by the House ethics committee for taking trips underwritten by corporate sponsors in violation of House rules.

Rangel's admonishment came despite the committee's finding there was no proof he knew of the violation. However, two of his aides knew of the sponsors, and the committee found Rangel responsible for his staff's actions.

The decision also highlights some of the inconsistency in the House's travel regulations. The trips involved were not allowed because corporations which employ lobbyists had directly funded the conference and underwrote aspects of the trip.

However, as LegiStorm pointed out in an earlier blog post, an organization that is funded by corporate donations can pay for congressional travel – even to visit the corporations that fund the organization – as long as the funds are not directly earmarked for such travel.

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Despite last year's bitter partisan spats, it seems there was at least one area where Republicans and Democrats saw eye-to-eye -- free trips to Israel.

Members of both parties approved upwards of 50 privately funded jaunts to the Holy Land in 2009. The cost of those trips beat out all domestic trips combined to claim the year's biggest price tag for the first time in LegiStorm's records.

The Israel trips were part of our review of all 2009 privately financed trips taken by members of Congress and their staff. Overall, the number of trips taken in 2009 increased about 15 percent from 2008, while the cost increased 27 percent. However, that increase brings the number and cost of trips back in line with travel totals from 2006 and 2007. But it still far from the travel totals before the Jack Abramoff scandal caused a drastic re-evaluation of congressional travel rules.

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Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas) told Roll Call he saw no problem with receiving free trips to China from a municipal organization for which he has helped secure more than $5 million in earmarks since 2005.

"It would be inappropriate if it were quid pro quo, but that is not the case here. I’m doing what members of Congress do: bringing jobs, economic development and industry to my district — and that’s what I have been doing since I was elected to Congress," Ortiz said.

Roll Call followed up with detailed reporting on Ortiz's earmarks and travel after a LegiStorm Storm Tips blog article last week that mentioned three trips Ortiz took to China sponsored by the Robstown Improvement Development Corp., the non-profit local development authority for his hometown. LegiStorm highliighted the fact that Ortiz did not go through the normal ethics ccommittee approval process for two of the three trips because they were sponsored by a municipal organization which is exempt. In previous reporting, Roll Call has highlighted Ortiz trips to China that blurred personal and public interests, such as trips taken to help companies owned by a businessman with whom Ortiz had financial dealings.

Ortiz has another tie to the development authority. His former chief of staff, Lencho Rendon, worked in his office when the $5 million earmark was crafted. Rendon has since become a consultant for the Robstown Improvement Development Corp., according to Roll Call.

Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas) has taken questionable trips to Asia in the past, blurring the line between personal and public interests, so when he started off the New Year with another trip to China, we took notice. And after poking around, we found two additional trips that Ortiz took to China that were not disclosed with other privately financed travel, highlighting one of several loopholes in congressional travel disclosure rules.

The first public questions about Ortiz's travel to China came in a little-noticed Corpus Cristi story in 2006. The local newspaper reported that Ortiz and his chief of staff took a total of $48,000 in trips to China funded by Access Asia Corp. After the trips, prosecutors secured plea agreements from two of Access Asia's principals in a case involving allegations that company officials helped Chinese nationals obtain fraudulent visas and forged documents to allow them to work in the United States.

At the time, an Ortiz spokeswoman denied any knowledge of the illegal scheme and said the congressman's interest was purely to bring jobs to Ortiz's district. She specifically mentioned the work he did on behalf of a telecommunications company run by local businessman Bill Sugarek.

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