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.
In all, members and their staffs took 209 trips this August compared to 189 trips in the same period two years ago, and nearly 350 trips last year.
Republican and Democratic representatives took some of the most expensive trips, ones to Israel paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation. The trips to Israel by Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.), Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) and Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) each cost more than $20,000.
Republicans approved more trips than Democrats during the recess but the trips by Democrats cost more. Republicans approved 113 trips costing $354,000 and Democrats approved 96 trips costing $413,000.
Travelers went as far as the Philippines and Senegal but also stayed closer to home, visiting pump station sites in Alaska and biofuels sites in Iowa.
So far in 2014, lawmakers and their staffs have taken 1,601 trips costing more than $4.1 million, with Republicans approving 1,012 and Democrats 585. The American Israel Education Foundation is the leading sponsor, paying $917,000 in 2014. The Aspen Institute is second with $612,000 and Congressional Institute Inc. is third at $290,863.27.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has taken more trips than any other member in 2014 with six and most recently spent a few days of the August recess in Haiti through the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.
