Tim Walz: Ban trips from interest groups
Gutknecht's opponent says, "If you lay with dogs, you can get fleas."
By Mark Fischenich
Mankato Free Press, Sunday, June 25, 2006
Tim Walz and Congressman Gil Gutknecht agree on at least one thing — travel is a valuable activity.
Walz, the Mankato Democrat hoping to unseat the 1st District incumbent in the Nov. 7 election, has taken numerous trips — most notably his multiple journeys to China.
"I paid for all of it," he said.
Members of Congress should do the same if the choice is between self-financed trips and those funded by specialinterest groups, Walz said. Trips provided by private interests leave members vulnerable to influence by the people financing the trips — people who may not always have the public’s best interests in mind.
"If you lay with dogs, you can get fleas," Walz said. "I think it’s just better to not lay with dogs." New scrutiny There’s been more focus on congressional travel since a scandal erupted involving Jack Abramoff. The disgraced lobbyist used expensive junkets as his primary tool for recruiting and rewarding members of Congress and their staffers who helped him change federal legislation to favor his clients.
A recently constructed database of congressional disclosure forms showed special interests paid about $50 million to finance nearly 23,000 trips by lawmakers and their staffs from 2000 to 2005.
Walz, a Mankato West High School geography teacher, said he favors setting up an independent commission to scrutinize travel requests from lawmakers looking for assistance in funding a trip.
Worthy trips should be paid for out of congressional budgets.
"I would sure rather have some say over this than to have Exxon- Mobile sending him to Alaska to talk about ANWR drilling," said Walz, referring to a Gutknecht trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "If he was so hungry for the knowledge, why wasn’t he willing to pay for it?" Gutknecht said he is very selective about what trips he lets private groups pay for, and he believes taxpayers are glad he can travel without billing them.
"I suspect there would be less travel," Gutknecht said of the result of banning privately funded trips.
"And that would be unfortunate." Gutknecht noted that in the past prominent lawmakers — including the late Sen. Hubert Humphrey — not only took privately funded trips, they also took thousands of dollars from special interests as an "honorarium" for giving a speech once they arrived at their destination.
That practice is now prohibited.
"People need to sort of put this in perspective as well," Gutknecht said.
Dim disclosure The fact The Free Press was doing a story about his privately funded travel shows the system works, Gutknecht said. Members of Congress report their travels, who paid for them, where they went and what the cost was. Then their constituents can decide whether it was an appropriate trip or a blatant junket.
"I think the real answer is disclosure," he said. "... Sunshine is the best disinfectant." But the House hasn’t gone out of its way to make the travel disclosure records easily available to the public or the media, said Sam Stein, a spokesman for the Center for Public Integrity, which compiled the travel database and made it available to the public.
If members of the House really want to shine the light of public scrutiny on the records, they could be put in a better place than a room in the sub-basement of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., he said.
"It’s actually quite dark down there," Stein said of the only place current records are available.
And while Gutknecht’s records were mostly complete, other members’ disclosure forms failed to list the destination, left out the sponsor of the trip, were torn and hard to read, or weren’t filed on time.
"These forms are extremely difficult to obtain and understand," Stein said.
Bring it home Former Congressman Tim Penny of Waseca, now a member of the Independence Party, comes down somewhere in between the positions of Walz and Gutknecht. While Penny agrees with Gutknecht that disclosure could curtail shameless junkets financed by thinly disguised lobbying groups, that only works if it’s legitimate disclosure.
That means putting the information about a proposed trip within reach of the public before the trip is taken, he said. It also means putting the information on the Internet or in the home district of each lawmaker rather than in an obscure Washington, D.C., office.
"If it’s a worthwhile trip, why wouldn’t you want your constituents to know about it before the trip?" Penny said.
That sort of scrutiny would force special-interest groups to think twice about making a trip too opulent because lawmakers — worried about a public backlash — wouldn’t attend.
"I’ll bet you there isn’t going to be a lot of golfing," Penny said as a result of that sort of advance disclosure.
Penny agrees with Walz that Congress has enacted no meaningful reform in how it deals with corruption, even after the Abramoff scandal brought promises of major changes from congressional leaders.
"In the final analysis, it died down as soon as the news media found other issues to focus on," said Penny, adding the problems didn’t disappear with Abramoff’s downfall.
"The opportunities to do the things he did are there. And don’t kid yourself that others aren’t doing the same thing."
(See related stories below.)
By Mark Fischenich
Mankato Free Press, Sunday, June 25, 2006
Tim Walz and Congressman Gil Gutknecht agree on at least one thing — travel is a valuable activity.
Walz, the Mankato Democrat hoping to unseat the 1st District incumbent in the Nov. 7 election, has taken numerous trips — most notably his multiple journeys to China.
"I paid for all of it," he said.
Members of Congress should do the same if the choice is between self-financed trips and those funded by specialinterest groups, Walz said. Trips provided by private interests leave members vulnerable to influence by the people financing the trips — people who may not always have the public’s best interests in mind.
"If you lay with dogs, you can get fleas," Walz said. "I think it’s just better to not lay with dogs." New scrutiny There’s been more focus on congressional travel since a scandal erupted involving Jack Abramoff. The disgraced lobbyist used expensive junkets as his primary tool for recruiting and rewarding members of Congress and their staffers who helped him change federal legislation to favor his clients.
A recently constructed database of congressional disclosure forms showed special interests paid about $50 million to finance nearly 23,000 trips by lawmakers and their staffs from 2000 to 2005.
Walz, a Mankato West High School geography teacher, said he favors setting up an independent commission to scrutinize travel requests from lawmakers looking for assistance in funding a trip.
Worthy trips should be paid for out of congressional budgets.
"I would sure rather have some say over this than to have Exxon- Mobile sending him to Alaska to talk about ANWR drilling," said Walz, referring to a Gutknecht trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "If he was so hungry for the knowledge, why wasn’t he willing to pay for it?" Gutknecht said he is very selective about what trips he lets private groups pay for, and he believes taxpayers are glad he can travel without billing them.
"I suspect there would be less travel," Gutknecht said of the result of banning privately funded trips.
"And that would be unfortunate." Gutknecht noted that in the past prominent lawmakers — including the late Sen. Hubert Humphrey — not only took privately funded trips, they also took thousands of dollars from special interests as an "honorarium" for giving a speech once they arrived at their destination.
That practice is now prohibited.
"People need to sort of put this in perspective as well," Gutknecht said.
Dim disclosure The fact The Free Press was doing a story about his privately funded travel shows the system works, Gutknecht said. Members of Congress report their travels, who paid for them, where they went and what the cost was. Then their constituents can decide whether it was an appropriate trip or a blatant junket.
"I think the real answer is disclosure," he said. "... Sunshine is the best disinfectant." But the House hasn’t gone out of its way to make the travel disclosure records easily available to the public or the media, said Sam Stein, a spokesman for the Center for Public Integrity, which compiled the travel database and made it available to the public.
If members of the House really want to shine the light of public scrutiny on the records, they could be put in a better place than a room in the sub-basement of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., he said.
"It’s actually quite dark down there," Stein said of the only place current records are available.
And while Gutknecht’s records were mostly complete, other members’ disclosure forms failed to list the destination, left out the sponsor of the trip, were torn and hard to read, or weren’t filed on time.
"These forms are extremely difficult to obtain and understand," Stein said.
Bring it home Former Congressman Tim Penny of Waseca, now a member of the Independence Party, comes down somewhere in between the positions of Walz and Gutknecht. While Penny agrees with Gutknecht that disclosure could curtail shameless junkets financed by thinly disguised lobbying groups, that only works if it’s legitimate disclosure.
That means putting the information about a proposed trip within reach of the public before the trip is taken, he said. It also means putting the information on the Internet or in the home district of each lawmaker rather than in an obscure Washington, D.C., office.
"If it’s a worthwhile trip, why wouldn’t you want your constituents to know about it before the trip?" Penny said.
That sort of scrutiny would force special-interest groups to think twice about making a trip too opulent because lawmakers — worried about a public backlash — wouldn’t attend.
"I’ll bet you there isn’t going to be a lot of golfing," Penny said as a result of that sort of advance disclosure.
Penny agrees with Walz that Congress has enacted no meaningful reform in how it deals with corruption, even after the Abramoff scandal brought promises of major changes from congressional leaders.
"In the final analysis, it died down as soon as the news media found other issues to focus on," said Penny, adding the problems didn’t disappear with Abramoff’s downfall.
"The opportunities to do the things he did are there. And don’t kid yourself that others aren’t doing the same thing."
(See related stories below.)
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