Lawmaker’s Free Trip Is Questioned

Political favors take many forms in this town, where congressional leaders have been treated to golf tours in Scotland and major campaign donors have slept in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Now comes a South Texas congressman taking a free trip to Asia a month after getting a federal courthouse named for the father of a lawyer who paid for the lawmaker’s trip.

Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz, a Corpus Christi Democrat, called it a coincidence.

“The timing of events never occurred to me, but I do understand how two events out of context could beg the question,” Ortiz said in a written statement.

Already there are calls for an ethics investigation.

“A congressman may not accept a trip as a thank-you,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. She urged the House Ethics Committee to look into “the circumstances surrounding the trip.”

For seven years, Ortiz had worked to win congressional approval for his bill naming a federal building in his district after two judges -- finally clearing the way this summer for the Reynaldo G. Garza and Filemon B. Vela U.S. Courthouse in Brownsville, Texas.

Then, Filemon B. Vela Jr., a Texas trial lawyer and son of the late judge, picked up the $22,200 tab for Ortiz’s and his chief of staff’s two-week Asia trip.

Vela also called that sequence -- and his earlier campaign donations -- a coincidence.

“Neither the trip nor the campaign contributions had anything to do with the naming of the courthouse,” Vela said in a statement forwarded by Ortiz’s office.

House ethics rules prohibit members from taking gifts that might be tied to their official actions, admonishing members to avoid even the appearance of a link. Sloan and others have sought more aggressive oversight of congressional travel.

Over the last five years, private interests have picked up $19 million in expenses for 6,441 congressional trips, according to an analysis of lawmakers’ travel disclosure statements by PoliticalMoneyLine, a Washington company that tracks special-interest money.

Ortiz, whose district spreads along the southernmost Texas Gulf Coast, has taken 14 privately funded trips to the Far East since 2000 at a cost of $95,679, according to PoliticalMoneyLine’s database.

The 12-term Democrat, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Resources Committee, said his travels were intended to generate jobs and foreign investments in his district.

But of all of Ortiz’s trips to Asia, the one that Vela Jr. financed stands out: Vela’s Corpus Christi law office paid the costs.

It is unusual for an individual or a law office to sponsor a congressional trip. Most are financed by think tanks, advocacy groups or firms seeking lawmakers to speak to them or to go on fact-finding trips.

House ethics rules say that private parties may pay for trips only to events or locations in which they have direct ties.

Vela sponsored the trip as a private citizen, said Ortiz’s press aide, Cathy Travis.

Vela said he and his wife, Rose, a local Texas judge, were planning their own Asia trip, primarily for pleasure and so that he could explore possible business opportunities. He invited Ortiz and his top aide, Vela said, because his wife was nervous about venturing into China.

“Being well aware of Congressman Ortiz’s and [his aide’s] familiarity with China, I asked them if they were thinking of going to China in that time frame, and it turned out that they were. So, I invited them to go knowing my wife would feel much more comfortable if we were with them,” Vela said in his written response.

His invitation came in May or June, after the courthouse-naming bill had passed the House and awaited expected Senate approval, Travis said.

The effort to name the Brownsville courthouse dates to the late 1990s, while it was under construction. There was a movement to name it after Reynaldo G. Garza, who in 1961 became the first Latino federal judge.

In 1998, Ortiz took up the cause in the House. His legislation sought to name the building after Judge Garza -- and added Judge Filemon B. Vela.

Vela Sr. had been instrumental in winning federal approval to build the courthouse, completed in 1999. The judge’s wife, Blanca, served as mayor of Brownsville.

Records show that Vela Jr. contributed $1,000 to the Ortiz campaign fund seven weeks before the congressman’s original courthouse-naming bill was introduced.

Ortiz introduced that bill four times. He said his efforts were initially blocked because both judges were still living, and federal buildings traditionally are named for people only after their deaths.

Both judges died last year within five months of each other, and Ortiz renewed his efforts. The bill won House approval for a second time in the fall of 2004.

Vela Jr. donated $2,000 to the Ortiz campaign fund in October 2004. It was received three weeks after the House approved the courthouse-naming bill. But Congress adjourned before the Senate could act.

Ortiz reintroduced the bill this year. After passing the House, it won Senate approval in June. Vela Jr. donated $4,000 to the Ortiz campaign fund, which was recorded by the campaign 12 days after the Senate’s OK.

President Bush signed it on June 29. Barely a month later, on Aug. 1, Ortiz and his chief of staff, Florencio Rendon, flew to the Far East for their tour with Vela Jr. and his wife.

Vela said the most recent contributions coincided with Ortiz fundraisers and that none of his donations had anything to do with the courthouse-naming legislation. Vela also said he had been friends with Ortiz and Rendon since serving as an intern in the congressman’s office in 1983.

Ortiz called his Asia tour a fact-finding trip that was intended to bring business to South Texas. “One of my duties as a member of Congress is to seek economic opportunities for South Texas, and I do that frequently,” Ortiz said in a written response to questions.

The congressman’s website says he is “an ambassador-without-portfolio, leading trade delegations repeatedly to the Pacific Rim to rustle up opportunities for industry to re-locate to South Texas.”

Travis said Ortiz’s efforts were instrumental in bringing in thousands of jobs, including those of a Singapore company that moved into the Port of Brownsville 15 years ago.

On the August trip, Ortiz met with business and government leaders, according to Travis, who said Vela also attended many of those meetings. Among the people they met together were a defense contractor in Singapore, about moving a trucking operation to South Texas; a Hong Kong company, about opening an industrial facility and importing Chinese beer; and government officials in Beijing, about opening a nursing program in China with a Texas university.

Ortiz’s spokeswoman said no firm commitments were made, but the group “made good headway” on the nursing partnership. She also said they “moved the ball” on the trucking facility, and that the contractor had been seeking space in Corpus Christi.

Vela returned to open an international law practice and to set up a corporation to facilitate joint ventures with foreign companies. Vela declined to identify any clients, but Travis said none were companies he had met through the congressman.

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Times researcher Mark Madden contributed to this report.