Private organizations are slowly resuming sponsored travel for congressional staffers and members. But even as travel returns and some members venture overseas, interest groups may continue to see their influence wane until the pandemic's end.
So far this year, staffers and members have disclosed accepting 55 trips that ran their private sponsors about $159,000, according to LegiStorm data.
From mid-March through December 2020, Congress accepted only eight trips valued at $6,200 total.
While travel is picking up speed since the height of the pandemic, it's nowhere near pre-pandemic levels. At this point in 2019, interest groups had given out $2.78 million in private travel - more than 17 times what staffers and members have accepted so far this year. Interest groups normally spend large sums on international and domestic travel in the hopes of making and influencing congressional allies. It's too soon to tell how much of a comeback they'll be able to make this summer, when interest groups typically employ their highest travel expenses.
More than half of this year's trip expenses come from the U.S.-Qatar Business Council, which spent nearly $85,000 on travel for four Democrats and one Republican. The trade association flew those members - Reps. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) - to Doha in the spring for meetings on business engagements, FIFA World Cup security and other U.S.-Qatar relation issues. The U.S.-Qatar Business Council also shelled out for Correa and Swalwell to bring their wives and for Gallego to bring his then-fiancée (now wife).
Only one other organization, the Fellowship Foundation, has sponsored international travel this year. About a month ago, the religious group spent $6,900 to send Reps. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) and John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) to Bosnia for meetings on faith, trade and foreign relations.
The remaining trips have mostly been to Texas and Florida.
