The latest Minnesota politician to find himself on the sponsored-trip hot seat is U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat from the 5th Congressional District.

Ellison has drawn fire in the last few weeks — mainly from the Minnesota Republican Party — for a trip he took almost a year ago to Saudi Arabia. The trip, for which the Muslim American Society of Minnesota ponied up $13,350, was described by Ellison as a Hajj, a personal religious pilgrimage to Mecca.

Because of a purported misunderstanding with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (aka the ethics committee) on the purpose of the trip — whether it was entirely personal or whether he intended to conduct “meetings of an official nature” — Ellison originally didn’t disclose the amount that the Muslim group paid for his trip.

(In some cases where House members can show that they are accepting paid travel for business purposes not related to their official duties, they aren’t required by ethics rules to fully disclose the costs. Since Ellison didn’t do any business in Saudi Arabia, as he initially thought he might, ethics committee members informed him that he was required to come clean about how much the society paid for the trip.)

But Ellison is far from the only member of Minnesota’s congressional delegation — past and present — who has zipped off to various spots around the world in the name of fact finding, public speaking or “education.”

Under congressional ethics guidelines, trips taken by members of Congress for purely personal reasons are considered gifts and are subject to full public disclosure. Since 2007, when new ethics laws barred lobbyists from sponsoring trips for members of Congress, that kind of “purely personal” trip has become much more common.

Enter LegiStorm.com.

The website’s travel database provides details on 29,125 privately financed trips — costing a total of $62.1 million — taken by members of Congress and their staffs since the beginning of 2000.

The information was compiled from the disclosure forms that members of Congress and staff members are required by law to file after taking privately funded trips. Those disclosure forms must include the names of those who have accepted free travel, their destinations, the purpose of the trips, the total tab for transportation, lodging, meals and other expenses, and the names of the organizations that paid for the excursions.

“Privately funded congressional travel has long been a matter of public interest and sometimes controversy,” the LegiStorm site notes. “Privately financed travel allows valuable opportunities for members and their staff to learn about important issues before the U.S. Congress. Moreover, private funding allows taxpayers to save money and provides lawmakers and their staff with numerous educational opportunities that otherwise might not be available to them.”

However, the site points out, critics say that the trips allow private interest groups to gain “extraordinary access” to public officials while they provide “extravagant and legally sanctioned perks.” “While most private travel has a serious and obvious educational purpose,” the site says, “some trips are thinly disguised opportunities for golfing or a vacation.”

A recent article on LegiStorm drew attention to a pro-Israel lobbying group that has apparently discovered a loophole in the rules that limit the ability of lobbying groups to pay for congressional travel — to the benefit of, among others, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District.

The American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF) paid the travel expenses of more than 50 lawmakers (including Bachmann) and staff members from both parties to go to Israel in August. AIEF is the fundraising arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential lobbying group. And although congressional rules forbid lobbyists to pay for congressional travel, the PAC gets around the ban by having its nonprofit arm — AIEF — pay for the trips.

The cost of Bachmann’s 2009 visit to Tel Aviv: $19,414. And that was her second trip to Israel courtesy of AIEF; she also went in August 2007, a trip that cost $17,796.

Last June, AIEF paid for Ellison’s legislative director, Minh Ta, to take a similar trip to Tel Aviv to the tune of $4,619, and in August 2007, Ellison himself went on an AIEF-financed trip to Israel that cost $17,404.

The LegiStorm site provides travel details not only on current members of Congress, but previous members. And one of them, former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., was one of the most peripatetic members of Congress — ranking 27th on the website’s list of the most-traveled members, three slots ahead of former Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

Coleman took 48 privately financed trips costing $96,752 during his single term in the Senate. His staff took 124 trips with a price tag of $229,057.

The top traveler in Coleman’s office (besides Coleman himself) was chief of staff Eric Mische, who went on 15 excursions to the tune of $27,204.

Two other members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation, both Democrats, are ranked in the top 100 of LegiStorm’s list of the most-traveled members: 7th District Rep. Collin Peterson ranks 51st with 34 trips costing $54,829 (and 132 total trips for staff members to the tune of $158,921), and 8th District Rep. Jim Oberstar, 56th on the list with 32 trips costing $99,063 and 67 trips for staff members at a cost of $196,564.

On the other end of the spectrum is 3rd District GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen, first elected to the House last year. Paulsen has taken no privately financed trips, though his chief of staff, Laurie Esau, attended a bicameral chiefs of staff retreat in nearby Cambridge, Md., in March; the $747 price tag was picked up by Congressional Institute Inc.

Democratic Sen. Al Franken, who took office in July, doesn’t even show up on the website’s alphabetical listing of senators yet.

The site ranks 17 members of Congress from Minnesota. Of those no longer serving, Coleman is by far the most traveled member, followed by GOP Rep. Gil Gutknecht, who took 18 trips to the tune of $44,231; Rep. Martin Sabo, a Democrat, who took nine trips costing $37,332; and Sen. Paul Wellstone, who took 15 privately financed trips at a cost of $21,563.

LegiStorm also ranks destinations, some of which it designates as “hellholes” (Uganda, Algeria, Lebanon, Haiti, the Western Sahara, Rwanda, Pakistan, Tanzania, Sudan and the like), “cultural meccas,” “golfing,” “skiing,” “tropical paradise” and “sin city.”

Of those designations, members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation have made their share of visits to locations that LegiStorm classifies as “sin cities” — mainly Las Vegas, the site of the Consumer Electronics Association’s annual international consumer electronics show, to which dozens of members of Congress regularly send staff members.

“Trips on this page are to casinos or to locations known for [their] gaming industry,” the website says primly. “This is not meant to suggest that gambling was necessarily an activity engaged in on any of the congressional trips shown here. However, we have provided this list as a helpful resource for our users.” 

One Minnesotan who made Las Vegas a regular stop on his itinerary — and those of his staff — was Norm Coleman.

Coleman and staffer James Bowell, his deputy state director, were guests of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on a trip to Vegas in October 2004. Coleman was speaking at the committee’s “annual Las Vegas gala,” and Bowell went along to “staff Coleman,” according to documents. The trip cost AIPAC $1,789 for Coleman and $1,466 for Bowell. 

It was Coleman’s second trip to Vegas in as many months: He also flew there in September 2004, again courtesy of AIPAC, to speak at the group’s third annual “valley dinner.” 

Coleman also sent Lisa Lyttle, at the time his administrative director, to Vegas in August 2005 to “observe red flag training for the U.S. Air Force” — a trip that cost the Air Force $635.

Peterson, who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, made a trip to Vegas in December 2006 as a guest of the U.S. Rice Federation to the tune of $2,407; the purpose of the trip was to “speak about the next farm bill and participate before the USA Rice Outlook Conference.”

And Oberstar journeyed to Las Vegas in March 2002 to speak at the 100th anniversary convention of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, a trip that cost $2,671; he went again in April 2003 to “speak to association members” on a trip paid for by the Transload Distribution Association. That trip was much more economical, with a price tag of $157.

Source: Finance & Commerce