Loebsack praise House Ethics reversal on privately funded travel

An Iowa Member of the U.S. House of Representatives who has taken no privately funded trips is praising House Ethics Committee members 'for coming to their senses' to reinstate the rule requiring members of Congress to disclose details of those travels.

Second District Democrat Rep. Dave Loebsack was among a bipartisan group of House members who pressured the Ethics Committee to reconsider its rule change that was revealed only recently by the media.

Loebsack and U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., had authored a resolution that would have forced the Ethics Committee to take this step had the panel not overturned its changes. A spokesman for 1st District Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley said the congressman had planned to co-sponsor the resolution, which Loebsack had planned to introduce when Congress returns from its Fourth of July recess.

The reversal, announced Thursday, came as unexpectedly as the change in the first place, Loebsack said. It wasn't clear how or where the change originated except that it was made within the House Ethics Committee without broader discussion.

Such moves 'only deepen the mistrust the American people have in Congress,' Loebsack said.

Although he has reservations about privately funded travel, Loebsack said he was not seeking to limit or ban trips paid for by outside groups. For him, it was all about transparency and maintaining — or rebuilding — the public's faith in democratic institutions.

'It's unacceptable on the face of it,' Loebsack said about the decision to remove a requirement that privately funded travel be included on annual financial disclosure forms filed by members of Congress. The House adopted the rule in 1978 following the Watergate scandal.

The decision to drop the rule 'clearly reduces the accountability and that is exactly the opposite direction we should be going,' Loebsack said. 'Transparency is very important especially when private entities are paying.'

Loebsack said he and others were unaware of the change until the National Journal reported it discovered the rule change when analyzing the most recent congressional financial disclosure reports.

'Changing of the rules in the middle of the night is exactly why Congress has a lower approval rating than cockroaches and traffic jams,' Loebsack said.

Even if the disclosure requirement had not been reinstated, members of Congress would have had to report trips paid for by private entities to the House's Office of the Clerk.

However, the previous Ethics decision meant that privately sponsored travel would not have been part of the financial disclosure forms filed by members of Congress. Those are the reports news reporters and congressional watchdogs use to monitor lawmakers' finances.

Even if the information is available elsewhere, 'we should make this as transparent as possible,' Loebsack said.

According to Legistorm, a subscription website that compiles travel records and other data about Congress, free travel has been increasing. Members of Congress and their aides took more free trips last year than in any year since the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal.

The Legistorm website reported nearly 1,900 trips at a cost of more than $6 million last year.

If the rule change had stood, none of those trips by members or their staffs would have been included on the annual disclosures.

Loebsack has not accepted privately funded travel. He has traveled to Iraq three times and Afghanistan six times as part of government-sponsored trips to visit troops deployed there.

He understands that some trips are clearly education, 'but I just think a wiser course is not to take trips on the private dime.'

'I'm not completely opposed to other folks doing that, but haven't seen any particular need for myself,' Loebsack said. 'I can talk to them in the U.S. as easily as I can go overseas.'

There are legitimate reasons to travel with various groups, but 'in almost every case, I have no question that the sponsor has an agenda,' he said.

Loebsack also was concerned that limiting transparency would contribute to the erosion of confidence in Congress.

'Clearly Congress is in a situation where its approval rating is at rock bottom,' said Loebsack, a former Cornell College political science professor.' That's never a good thing, not just for members, but for the institution itself and the larger issues of our democracy and respect for institutions and how that reflects on our democracy.'

A recent Gallup poll found only 7 percent of Americans said they have 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in Congress as an American institution. That's down from the previous low of 10 percent in 2013 and far from the 42 percent who had confidence in Congress in 1973, the first year Gallup asked the question.

FYI

For the most part, Iowa's House delegation has not done a great deal of privately funded travel.

Democrat Rep. Dave Loebsack and Republican Rep. Tom Latham have taken no trips on funded by private entities since 2007, according to reports filed with the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House.

Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley has taken two trips — one to Israel and another to Japan, Guam and Los Angeles.

Republican Rep. Steve King, on the other hand, has reported 18 trips paid for by private groups. In addition to several domestic trips, King has traveled to Germany, Russia and Bavaria.

While the Congressional members may not be jet-setters, their staff members often have taken privately sponsored trips. While most trips were to U.S. cities — often in their bosses' congressional districts — foreign destinations included Germany, Turkey, Israel, Bosnia, Macedonia, Russia and Belgium.

Among the most common sponsors are the American Israel Education Foundation, Congressional Institute, German Marshall Fund, Robert Bosch Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Iowa commodity groups and renewable fuels associations, Iowa State University, Turkish Coalition of America, Heritage Foundation and Club for Growth.