Privately financed travel data shows a stark difference between how Republican and Democratic staffers are trained to do their jobs effectively.
While nearly half of Republican-approved trips in 2024 have focused on educating hundreds of Republican staffers, trip disclosures indicate that there have been no Democratic trips focused on educating staff.
Republican members of Congress have approved 826 trips this year, totaling approximately $3.1 million, with over 45% of these trips focused on training staff on basic matters like how to communicate effectively and how to come together on a policy agenda. Although Democratic members have approved 383 trips, totaling approximately $2.3 million, none of these trips were primarily focused on educating staff about how to manage their jobs and on Democratic strategies. Instead, Democratic-approved trips tend to focus on understanding policy matters like transportation, foreign policy or health care from the perspectives of the trip sponsors.
Republican-approved educational trips have been funded primarily by six organizations this year: the Conservative Partnership Institute, Heritage Foundation, Congressional Institute Inc., Senate Working Group, American Compass and Economic Policy Innovation Center. Together they sponsored 388 trips that amount to a $464,000 investment in the party's future.
The educational trips sponsored by these organizations this year have already surpassed the trips they sponsored during 2023, which saw only 341 trips sponsored by the organizations for $394,000.
Disclosures for these trips, which included symposiums, conferences and workshops, list various educational purposes, such as "presentations on legislative skill building and how to address key conservative policy issues in Congress," "a training program that educates attendees on new approaches to various policy topics" and "learning about the different policy initiatives from Members of Congress."
