
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 6, 1990                   TAG: 9006060071
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

SENATE TRIPS INCREASED

Private donors paid for at least 506 trips taken by U.S. senators last year, Public Citizen reported Tuesday.

The watchdog group said the trip total was up from the 452 privately funded trips senators reported in 1988, but down from the 669 trips they reported in the comparable non-election year of 1987, when more senators had time for non-campaign travel.

Most of that free travel and lodging was given in connection with speeches before corporate executives or trade associations, said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen.

"These groups are willing to pick up the junket tab because it provides them with a unique opportunity to gain access to lawmakers," she said.

Senators who reported taking private trips averaged six free trips each.

The top Senate trip takers were David Durenberger, R-Minn., 20 privately funded trips; Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and James Jeffords, R-Vt., 14 each; and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Charles Robb, D-Va., 13 each.

Eight senators didn't accept any privately funded trips.

Claybrook said members of Congress should have to follow the same rules as the executive branch, where officials can't accept any free travel, food or lodging from private sources.

"If a speech is worth making to advance the public interest, and some of them certainly are, the government should pay," Claybrook said. "If the system is good enough for HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, it would have been good enough for Rep. Jack Kemp."

by CNB