Cloaked in secrecy

Congress is returning to Washington this week. Do you know where your members spent their just-concluded recess? Or what special interests might have picked up the tab?
As USA TODAY's Jim Drinkard reported recently, devious lobbyists and travel-hungry lawmakers are using innocent-sounding non-profit corporations to get around the rules on junkets.

One such shadowy, tax-exempt non-profit run by a group of lobbyists — America's Trust — was used in April to fly four members of Congress and three of their spouses to California's scenic Napa Valley for three days at a $658-a-night resort. At least five lobbyists went along.

If the lobbyists had paid for the $46,000 trip directly, they would have violated a ban designed to prevent members of Congress from taking gifts from special interests. By running the trip through America's Trust, it was legal — if sleazy.

The Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group, and American Public Media, a public broadcaster, reported last month that more than 850 congressional trips, worth more than $4 million, were paid for since 2000 by non-profits with lobbyists among their directors. Among the popular fact-finding destinations were Las Vegas, Miami, Scottsdale, Ariz., and Boca Raton, Fla., at home — and Paris, London, Rome, Rio de Janeiro and the Cayman Islands abroad.

The real sources of the money that paid for this congressional travel are cloaked in secrecy. Non-profits don't have to report where their money comes from, and most aren't about to.

The creative use of non-profits to disguise Washington shenanigans was highlighted further at a recent Senate hearing into allegations that high-rolling lobbyists bilked Indian tribes. David Grosh, now a construction worker, told senators of being a lifeguard on the Delaware shore in 2001 when a childhood friend, who became a power lobbyist, asked him to head a think tank called the American International Center, based at his beach house.

The center has since been exposed as part of a network of non-profits linked to the schemes of lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Senators and representatives are entitled to travel at taxpayer expense to broaden their perspectives on major issues. They're not entitled to mini-vacations financed by special interests.

Congress needs to tighten its rules on members' travel to close the lobbyist/non-profit loophole. And non-profits being used as fronts for lobbyists should be required to disclose where their money is coming from and where it's going. High-flying lawmakers and lobbyists who exploit tax-exempt entities ought to be grounded.