Privately Funded Congressional Travel Down

With limits on congressional travel passed by the House and additional restrictions being considered in the House and Senate, lawmakers are taking dramatically fewer privately funded trips this year. In the first two months of 2007, the amount spent by private interests on travel for legislators and their staff members has dropped by 80 percent from the same period in the previous year, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. The trips are typically described as speeches, conventions or "fact-finding" missions on disclosure forms.