Power Trips Database Goes Live
Info on Sponsors, Destinations, Costs of 5 1/2 years of Congressional Travel Made Public
More than 25,000 public documents detailing the privately funded travel taken by members of Congress and their aides from January 2000 to June 2005, was made public today by the Center for Public Integrity.The database, which can be accessed at http://www.publicintegrity.org , is the product of nearly a year's worth of investigative research done by Center staff, American Public Media reporters and Northwestern University Medill School students.
• The House of Representatives' forms are kept in a sub- basement of the Cannon House Office Building, where the public copies are often hard to read, torn and misfiled. It is against House rules to digitally scan the documents.
• The Senate travel disclosure documents are stored in a computer system in the Hart Senate Office Building, but the records are not available online.