For the first time in six months, congressional staffers have resumed privately sponsored travel.
The Red River Valley Sugarbeet Education Foundation paid for staffers to attend meetings and tour farms around Fargo, N.D. RRVSEF and other interest groups spend large sums on travel in the hopes of making and influencing congressional allies, who get immersed for days in issues from the organization's point of view.
This is the first time that an outside group has sponsored official congressional travel since early March. An itinerary indicates that some of the agenda was altered due to COVID-19, including taking a bus tour of a processing plant instead of touring the inside.
Henry Bridgforth, a legislative assistant to Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R-Minn.) was the first staffer to disclose that he attended the trip. The agenda lists staffers from the offices of Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Rep. Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) and the House Agriculture Committee as additional participants. Trip-goers have 15 days to file upon their return, and late filings are not uncommon.
