LegiStorm

Privately financed trips for members of Congress and their staff hit a 13-year high in 2019, thanks to record spending on travel to Israel.

Private sponsors dropped more than $7.7 million on 2254 trips in 2019. That's the highest since 2005, when spending reached $9.9 million before falling to just $3.6 million in the following two years, according to LegiStorm data.

More than $2.7 million of last year's total expenses came from just 169 trips to Israel - the most private money spent on congressional travel to a single foreign country since at least 2000, and a full $1 million more than the cost of all privately sponsored domestic travel in 2019.

The American Israel Education Foundation, a sister organization to the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbying group, made up most of that, spending $2.3 million on 129 trips. AIEF is consistently among the top congressional trip sponsors. It and other interest groups spend such large sums on international travel in the hopes of making and influencing congressional allies.

It's possible that members and staff will disclose more 2019 travel in the coming weeks. Trip-goers have 15 days to file upon their return, and late filings are not uncommon.

David Voorman, who worked his way up from intern to legislative counsel for Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), has jumped to the advocacy world. Voorman started this month as a senior policy analyst for Americans for Prosperity, focusing on free speech and free expression. 

The libertarian group, founded in 2004, is funded by Charles Koch and the late David Koch and promotes ideas of "free economy," according to its tax-exemption filings. David Koch, who died in August, served as the chairman of the board for the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.  

In 2018, Americans for Prosperity's former director of policy made the opposite move, joining the House Education and Labor Committee, for which Foxx is the ranking member.  

Senate Republicans have re-hired a health-policy expert to the committee she left two years ago.

Kathryn Bell comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, where she most recently served as a senior policy adviser.

She's now professional staff to the HELP Committee under chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who is not seeking reelection to the Senate next year. Before leaving for DHHS, she was a health-policy research assistant for the committee.

After a stint with the country's largest dental-plan system, a former staffer is back on the Hill.

Casey Quinn is now a legislative assistant covering education, labor and Social Security issues for Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio). She spent the last nine months as a government relations associate at Delta Dental Plans Association. She did not register as a lobbyist during her time there.

Before that, Quinn worked for Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), who retired at the end of last term.

The chief of staff to Sean Duffy (R-Wis.), who resigned from the House in September, has moved to a company producing marijuana.

Pete Meachum is now senior director for government affairs at the Cronos Group, which bills itself as "an innovative global cannabinoid company." The Canada-based group has not disclosed a U.S. lobbying presence at this time.

Meachum had served as Duffy's chief since 2013, briefly taking leave from the office to head Donald Trump's 2016 campaign efforts in Wisconsin. He has also worked for then-Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and for ex-Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.).