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Posted by Heavyn Lester on April 29, 2024
After coming to a practical standstill following the start of the Israel-Hamas war, privately funded congressional travel to Israel has seen a significant upturn in 2024. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Jan. 29, 2024
Interest-group spending on private congressional travel reached its highest point since before the pandemic. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Oct. 2, 2023
Last month, Congressional Black Caucus members traveled to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before continuing to Rwanda - a trip that represents some of the highest-ever spending by an interest group on private congressional travel. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Nov. 21, 2022
It's not even Thanksgiving, and interest groups have already spent more on private congressional travel than in any election year since 2004. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on May 23, 2022
Interest groups are making up for lost time, spending on private congressional travel at the highest election-year rate since 2014. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Jan. 6, 2020
Privately financed trips for members of Congress and their staff hit a 13-year high in 2019, thanks to record spending on travel to Israel. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Sept. 9, 2019
One out of seven representatives spent part of the August recess traveling to Israel, thanks to a private sponsor that dropped more than $1.45 million on the trip. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Aug. 5, 2019
Travel by Republicans has made up more than two-thirds of all privately sponsored congressional trips in 2019, thanks largely to one sponsor. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Jan. 28, 2019
Privately sponsored congressional trips to Israel hit a ten-year low last year, thanks to one influential group shying away from paying for election-year travel. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Jan. 16, 2018
Congressional members and staff sure wanted to escape Washington last year — and private travel sponsors spent the most money since 2005 helping them do just that. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on Sept. 13, 2017
If Democrats and Republicans in Congress agreed on one thing this August, it was the importance of traveling to Israel. They just couldn't agree to travel together. read more
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Posted by Keturah Hetrick on March 20, 2017
Staff for at least half a dozen freshman members of Congress have already made their first overseas voyages courtesy of interest groups, and it may come as little surprise to Congress watchers that those trips were all to Israel. read more
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Posted by J. Todd Foster on March 28, 2016
A Minnesota congressman's trip to Africa is the most expensive privately financed trip of the year so far because he also had the nonprofit sponsor pick up the tab for his adult daughter. read more
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Posted by J. Todd Foster on March 18, 2016
Hillary Clinton is slated to speak at AIPAC's annual policy conference, which begins this weekend. Her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders, is not. read more
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Posted by Sean Myers on Feb. 17, 2016
Congressional travel continued to trend upwards in 2015, with both the number of trips and their costs reaching new heights since 2005. read more
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Posted by Steve Shapiro on Oct. 27, 2015
The former legislative director for Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) has made the schlep from the Hill to K Street to take a position with AIPAC. read more
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Posted by Steve Shapiro on Oct. 16, 2015
A visit to Israel by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and his wife last month was the third most expensive privately financed trip a member has taken in the last 15 years. read more
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Posted by Jenna Ebersole on Feb. 2, 2015
Congressional staff and their bosses spent weeks off Capitol Hill in 2014 flying around the world on nearly 2,000 privately sponsored trips. read more
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Posted by Jenna Ebersole on Sept. 22, 2014
Trips by members of Congress and their staffs during the August recess cost $766,000, a dramatic increase from two years ago.Although the figure is much lower than last August's $2 million figure, it represents a nearly 50 percent increase in spending over the more comparable election-year August of 2012, when $515,000 was spent. Typically, election year travel is reduced, as members focus their attention on reelection and away from potentially politically unpopular junkets. The latest numbers support an overall increase in travel in recent years. read more
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Posted by Nate Hoffman on Aug. 28, 2014
August might be the perfect time to visit Aspen or Paris, but a handful of members instead chose to visit a battle zone: Israel. read more
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Posted by Katie Barrows on March 11, 2014
One lawmaker might have had a classic joke in mind - "Take my mother-in-law... please!" - with his latest overseas voyage. read more
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Posted by Katie Barrows on Feb. 3, 2014
Lawmakers and their staff broke a record for taking the most privately funded trips since 2007, when reforms came into effect after a major lobbying scandal. read more
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Posted by Nate Hoffman on Dec. 23, 2013
In his first six years in the Senate, Jon Tester (D-Mont.) never reported taking a single trip sponsored by private interests but he made his first one memorable. Last week, he reported his first trip, and a fairly momentous one at that. Tester, along with his wife Sharla and aide Jorge Rueda, traveled to Israel from Nov. 21-27, coincidentally just as the United States signed a nuclear deal with Iran. read more
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Posted by Katie Barrows on Sept. 23, 2013
U.S. lawmakers traveled this August in record numbers for the post-Abramoff era, with travelers jetting to such far-flung locales as China, Tanzania and Israel. read more
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Posted by LegiStorm on Sept. 9, 2013
Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) in August skipped the country with his one-time mistress but this time, his office didn't announce that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. read more
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Posted by Katie Barrows on Aug. 20, 2013
A group closely affiliated with the top pro-Israel lobby may have spent as much as $1 million or more this month to send members of Congress and top aides to Israel.The trip by the American Israel Education Foundation follows in a well-established tradition of lavishing attention on members of Congress, particularly freshmen who are getting their first look at the region. read more
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Posted by Greg Wright on Nov. 26, 2012
The American Israel Education Foundation has flown at least three more senators to Israel, including two who were taking their first privately financed trip since being elected. read more
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Posted by Garrett Snedeker on Sept. 19, 2012
More than three-and-a-half years after being sworn into office, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) finally accepted his first privately financed trip, a four-day, three-night jaunt to Israel. read more
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Posted by Garrett Snedeker on Aug. 31, 2012
As a congressional colleague took the heat for skinny-dipping in the Sea of Galilee, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) ensured that he did not get caught with his pants down, recently filing a disclosure from the trip even if it was nearly a year late. read more
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Posted by Garrett Snedeker on July 25, 2012
Hurricane Irene may have done more than wipe out parts of the Eastern seaboard in 2011. It may have also wiped out Rep. Mike Grimm (R-N.Y.)'s memory since he forgot to disclose a trip he was taking at the time to Cyprus - until now. read more
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Posted by Daimon Eklund on March 29, 2012
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) didn't take a privately financed trip for his first two and a half years in office, but a personal tour of Israel appears to have been too good to pass up. read more
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Posted by LegiStorm on Jan. 26, 2012
Private interests spent a record amount to send members of Congress and their staff on trips on 2011, and the individual trips were longer and costlier than ever before.There were 1,600 privately funded congressional trips in 2011, worth a total of more than $5.8 million, the largest amount since ethics reforms were enacted in 2007 in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal. The total amount is the highest since 2005, when a record 4,917 trips were taken totaling $9.9 million. The record for money spent came in 2004, when 4,780 trips cost nearly $10.4 million. read more
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Posted by LegiStorm on Nov. 21, 2011
Congressional trips to Israel are now being sponsored by a new organization, this one whose leader who speaks often about modern Israel in Biblical prophecy. read more
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Posted by Daimon Eklund on Oct. 6, 2011
Rep. Steven Palazzo's (R-Miss.) August trip to Israel is no longer the third-most expensive jaunt in recent history. read more
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Posted by Daimon Eklund on Sept. 12, 2011
The American Israel Education Foundation has spent a record amount to send members of Congress and their staff to Israel in 2011, even before all the numbers are in. read more
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Posted by LegiStorm on Aug. 10, 2011
Nearly 20 percent of all members of the House of Representatives will travel to Israel this month courtesy of the American Israel Eduction Foundation (AIEF), according to the Washington Post. read more
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Posted by LegiStorm on March 1, 2011
Lawmakers and their staff took fewer privately-financed trips in 2010 than any other year since LegiStorm started tracking the data, but the average cost of those trips rose to its highest point. read more
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Posted by Daimon Eklund on July 30, 2010
It's hard to keep a secret in the digital age. read more
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Posted by LegiStorm on Feb. 24, 2010
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. read more
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Posted by Daimon Eklund on Sept. 28, 2009
A pro-Israel lobbying group has found a loophole in the rules limiting the ability of lobbying groups to pay for congressional travel - a loophole large enough that they are one of the leading sponsors of such travel. read more
