Road Hogs

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Congressman Eligio ("Kika") de la Garza, a Texas Democrat, returned last week from a 16-day tour of New Zealand and Australia, with two-day stopovers in both Singapore and Hawaii. The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee and three colleagues were said to be on "official business," delving into farm and trade issues. Perhaps De la Garza's trip was necessary and useful. But what makes it at least appear extravagant is that so far this year he has already visited Greece, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Brazil, South Africa, the Dominican Republic and Italy.

That was his second trip to Italy in two years. He has also seen France twice. In 1981, when a trip to the Soviet Union fell through because of difficulties with visas, he simply redirected his tour group to Copenhagen, Budapest, Istanbul, Athens and Madrid. Since 1981, the Congressman has taken nine tours to 18 countries, all at taxpayers' expense.

De la Garza's globetrotting is hardly unique. He is only one of many who seem to take advantage of the public purse in pursuing junkets around the globe. A report released last week by Congress Watch, a Washington-based public interest group founded by Ralph Nader, documents the travel of all Senators and Congressmen for a 2 1/2-year period ending June 30, 1983: 991 trips that reached 114 countries. Some members did no traveling: 44% of Congressmen and 37% of Senators stayed at home during the period. Others traveled moderately and with a clear purpose in mind. On his 1981 and 1983 tours of Africa, Democrat Howard Wolpe of Michigan, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, became known for his grueling itineraries.

Among the most peripatetic of Congressmen, according to the report: P: Robert Badham, a California Republican, took nine trips in two years, seeing 29 countries, including Britain and Italy twice. P:Frank Annunzio, an Illinois Democrat, visited Italy three times in two years, as well as eleven other countries. P:Eldon Rudd, an Arizona Republican, made trips to the Far East twice, Latin America three times, Europe twice and an extended tour through Africa and the Middle East.

The Congress Watch report showed that the travel is not only >> frequent, but also often extravagant. For example, costly military transport planes are used | when commercial airline service would be cheaper and just as convenient. Congressman Ronnie 3 Hippo, an Alabama Democrat, last year led a nine-member delegation to Vienna to attend a U.N. conference. The flight costs came to $74,392 using military aircraft, almost three times the tab to fly business class in commercial planes, according to the report. These bills are paid out of funds--$26.3 million this year--that Congress appropriates to the Air Force to maintain a fleet of 17 planes for official Government travel. On these military transports, spouses can travel free when space is available. Other abuses, says Congress Watch, include taking far more members and staff than are necessary to accomplish the stated purpose of a trip, lavish use of "food and refreshment" money supplied by military escorts and embassy personnel to the delegations, and excessive travel by lame-duck members.

In many cases, overseas tours can be useful, even critical, in educating lawmakers. They can be, as the report put it, "legitimate, eye-opening trips that can expose members to a whole new perspective on a foreign-aid bill or future sources of energy abroad." That is why those members who abuse the system, whose junkets taint all congressional travel in the eyes of the public, do so much harm. sb This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.