 At a time when congressional travel is coming under new scrutiny, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) has the distinction of taking more trips at taxpayer expense than anyone else in the California delegation.
In the last 3 1/2 years, she visited the South Pole, snorkeled at Australia's Great Barrier Reef and joined world leaders at a security conference in Munich, Germany. She met with Darfur refugees in Sudan, attended a "legislators' dialogue" with European Parliament members in Slovenia, delivered a speech on transportation security in France and inspected anti-terrorism defenses in Genoa, Italy, and Mombasa, Kenya.
All told, she has made 20 overseas trips since the start of 2006, touching down on every continent. Last year, she went abroad seven times. Many times she used military flights, but one commercial flight from Australia to Britain cost $8,383.
Sanchez, a congresswoman since 1997, said the travel was important to her work as the ranking female lawmaker on the House Armed Services Committee and as vice chairwoman of the Homeland Security Committee.
"I am a much more effective legislator when I am better educated on the issues," she said.
Congressional travel is in the spotlight again because of increased spending for government-sponsored trips. Critics, though acknowledging that some trips serve valid public purposes, contend that the system needs clearer, more complete reporting of the details.
"There simply has to be more transparency and more scrutiny of these trips," said Rep. Timothy V. Johnson (R-Ill.), who is cosponsoring legislation to require the Pentagon to disclose the cost of flying lawmakers on military aircraft. Currently, lawmakers report only the expense of commercial flights and per diems for meals and lodging.
Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, said: "If these fact-finding missions are so important, and I'm not saying they aren't, lawmakers should be fine with sharing all the facts of their trip."
The scrutiny of taxpayer-funded trips comes after lawmakers cracked down on privately funded travel in response to scandals such as lobbyist-arranged golf outings to Scotland. The attention also comes as lawmakers return to Washington after taxpayer-funded excursions during their summer recess. One group took a 10-day trip to American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and Palau; another group spent 13 days visiting Germany, Switzerland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China and Canada.
Iraq and Afghanistan have become frequent destinations for lawmakers. But they also have traveled to more hospitable places including the Galapagos Islands and the Paris Air Show.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has taken two taxpayer-funded trips abroad, both in 2007. She led a group of senators to Greenland and later traveled to Iceland, Britain and France -- in both cases to view the effects of global warming and explore how other countries were responding to climate change. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) last took a taxpayer-funded trip abroad in 2004, to Iraq.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has taken 10 trips overseas at taxpayer expense, including two trips each to Afghanistan and Iraq, since she assumed the House leadership post in 2007. She took one other trip in 2006.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, hasn't taken a taxpayer-funded overseas trip since he visited refugees of the Kosovo war in the Balkans a decade ago.
"Usually, I can learn more if I devote the same number of hours studying, discussing issues with foreign policy experts, and meeting with foreign leaders when they come to Washington," he said.
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