| Home | Blog | Ask This | Showcase | Commentary | Comments | About Us | Contributors | Contact Us |
Report sees Boehner as a leader in the DeLay moldSHOWCASE | March 79, 2006Center for Public Integrity tracks new House Majority Leader's trips to some of the world’s premier golf spots and locales, and 45 rides on special-interest corporate airplanes. By Alex Kingsbury Reporters chasing daily news stories often lack the time to make use of the mountains of information in the public domain. But in the hands of meticulous watchdog reporters, available data can illuminate stories beyond the talking points that too often dominate political coverage. The Center for Public Integrity’s Sam Stein examined Federal Elections Commission and Congressional travel disclosure forms, wading through some 15 years of expenditures by new House majority leader John Boehner. When Boehner (R-Ohio) was elected majority leader in early February, Stein writes, "he presented himself as a new kind of leader — someone who would rise above doing business as usual, a departure from the aggressive tactics and ethical tight-rope walking of his predecessor, Tom 'The Hammer' DeLay." But following Boehner's political financial activities, the story says, "indicates that the way he does business might not be so different from DeLay." Boehner took dozens of trips on jets owned by corporations that had legislative interests before Congress, Stein found. Records show that the new majority leader accepted scores of privately sponsored trips (often categorized as having fact-finding or educational purposes) to some of the world's premier golf spots and foreign locales, hosted many high-end fund-raisers to wine and dine potential donors and Republican colleagues, and, through his leadership PAC (political action committee), raised more than $2.83 million for election campaigns of fellow Republicans. "Boehner flew at least 45 times on corporate planes from June 2001 through September 2005. The companies on whose jets he flew include R.J. Reynolds Tobacco (15 times), UST, Inc. (seven), Swisher International Inc. (seven), FedEx (five), and Sallie Mae (four)," according to the story. The CPI's Graphic Designer Jyoti Sauna and Sr. Fellow John Perry tracked Boehner's spending around the country, producing this interactive map of his expenditures.
|
