Lawmakers Find Freebies a Less Popular Way to Go

Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Tex.), a member of a key defense appropriations subcommittee, spent six days in Los Angeles last year at the expense of half a dozen defense companies and returned home with $10,000 in appearance fees.

He stayed at the Century Plaza, dined at fine restaurants and generally had a very good time. “I love to go to Los Angeles,” said Wilson, smiling broadly as he recalled his trip. “You all really got it figured out pretty well out there.”

Wilson’s visit was what one House aide characterizes as “your standard honoraria trip”--a phenomenon of congressional life that provides fees and free travel to influential lawmakers who are willing to visit the companies whose business depends on decisions by Congress.

For years, such trips hosted by Southern California’s defense industry have been one of the most popular ways for members of Congress with responsibilities over defense to earn extra income. Contractors and members of Congress have long defended this practice as a legitimate outgrowth of the legislative process.

But in an era when politicians are increasingly being criticized by their political opponents for accepting money from special interests, it appears that these trips could be harder to come by for Wilson and other lawmakers. In the last year, several defense contractors, led by Lockheed, General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas, have banned the practice on the ground that it opens them and the congressmen involved up to unnecessary criticism.

At Lockheed, Steve Caudet, vice president for public affairs, said it was ended because it began to be viewed as a bad system. “We ought to figure out a better way for members of Congress to be paid,” Caudet said. “There is a feeling on the part of the public that honoraria is not the way to do the public’s business.”

Traditionally, congressional trips to Southern California defense plants have begun with an invitation from a single company. Other contractors then are asked to share the air fare from Washington, as well as the costs of hotel, meals, ground transportation and entertainment.

Each day during his stay, the visiting lawmaker goes to a different plant and listens to briefings from corporate executives. The lawmaker is also expected to make a brief speech to the company’s employees in order to qualify for an honorarium of up to $2,000 from each firm.

In their heyday, these trips often combined business with pleasure. A benchmark for leisure apparently was set in 1988 when several contractors paid for Rep. Joseph M. McDade (R-Pa.), ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, to participate in two golf tournaments in Southern California. The 12-day visit also earned McDade $5,000 in appearance fees.

Although contractors and members of Congress have always been sensitive to criticism of these trips, there was little effort to curb the practice until early last year whenthe House voted to severely restrict honorariums, beginning next January. Some contractors felt honorarium trips had received “too much bad press,” as one official put it.

Just a year earlier, veteran Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (R-Conn.) was defeated by an opponent who made an issue of appearance fees and trips he had accepted.

William W. Maurer, legislative affairs director of General Dynamics, said his company decided to end the free trips after the conduct of the late Rep. Bill Chappell Jr. (D-Fla.), chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, became a subject of inquiry in the defense procurement scandal known as Ill Wind, which has led to the conviction of more than 30 individuals and four companies. Chappell, who had received appearance fees from defense contractors, was not charged with illegal acts.

However, “Our chairman said: ‘I just don’t want to take any chances,’ ” Maurer recalled.

Congressional reaction to the ending of free trips by some companies was divided. Some members of Congress were “very angry,” according to Maurer. But other industry officials said an increasing number of the most influential members of the defense-related committees had already begun to decline their invitations.

“An awful lot of members just quit asking,” said Gaudet. “Everything kind of converged at the same time.”

Among those who stopped asking was Sen. J. James Exon (D-Neb.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on strategic forces and nuclear deterrence. Exon, who took his last free trip to Los Angeles at the expense of Northrop, Rockwell and Marquardt in late 1988, abruptly stopped accepting the appearance fees and free trips early last year while Congress was debating a proposed ban on honorariums.

Unlike the House, the Senate eventually rejected the ban and senators will continue to be permitted to receive up to $23,568 in honorariums next year. In the House, although members will be barred from keeping any honorarium income, they will be allowed to donate the fees to charity.

Mark Bowen, press secretary to Exon, said that the Nebraska senator--one of at least 33 senators who have voluntarily forsworn honorariums in recent years--was convinced by last year’s Senate debate that the honorariums were no longer viewed by the voting public as acceptable. “The senator decided that if there is a question in anybody’s mind, he would not take in any more,” he said.

Even some members of Congress who continue to travel the defense contractors’ circuit in Los Angeles are now critical of the trips.

Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), who took two all-expenses-paid trips to Southern California last year that netted him $14,000 in fees, said he feels “uncomfortable” taking money from these companies because it could create an appearance of impropriety.

But he admitted that this is a new opinion for him. “Did I always feel uncomfortable about the system? The answer is no,” he said.

Likewise, Rep. Les AuCoin (D-Ore.), another frequent visitor to the defense plants in the Los Angeles area, said he still does it primarily for the money. Without the honorariums, he said, he would have been unable to put his two children through college.

“The honoraria trail is a piece of congressional life,” AuCoin said.

As AuCoin explains it, a tour of Southern California defense plants in January or February, when Congress is seldom in session, is one of the fastest and easiest ways for a member of Congress to collect the maximum in fees before the press of congressional business increases later in the year.

AuCoin also noted that he has voted against some of the weapons produced by contractors who paid for his travel.

Despite all the bad publicity generated by the honorarium system, some members of Congress are not shy about collecting these fees. Defense contractors still receive more requests than they can satisfy from members wishing to visit their Southern California plants, according to industry sources.

General Dynamics’ Maurer said his firm has even received requests for invitations from members of committees that have nothing to do with defense, such the House or Senate agriculture committees.

Rep. Robert W. Davis (R-Mich.), who has had to defend his honorariums against campaign attacks in recent reelection battles, makes no apologies about his trips to Los Angeles. He said he goes on these trips for the fees and the opportunity to persuade the big defense firms to use subcontractors from his home district.

“We say to the big contractors: ‘We’d like an opportunity to bid on some of your work,’ ” Davis explained.

Some contractors who have abandoned the practice say they fear that it will now be more difficult for them to persuade Congress to continue funding their programs without the opportunity to corral key members of defense-related committees for an entire day of briefings.

“We just have to find other ways to inform members,” Gaudet said.

As a result, other contractors whose programs are in particular jeopardy by congressional budget cutting continue to provide free trips. Indeed, one of the most popular congressional trips last year was not to the Los Angeles area, but instead to the Bell Helicopter plant in Ft. Worth, Tex., where the V-22 Osprey is being developed. Bell currently is battling the Pentagon’s decision not to buy the V-22.

Not surprisingly, Northrop, whose multibillion-dollar B-2 bomber project is sorely threatened by congressional budget cutting, continues to be a leader in providing congressional trips to Los Angeles. Many members still visit Northrop’s B-2 shop for briefings.

Northrop’s Washington spokesman, Loy Miller, said his company will continue to pay honorariums to House members next year, even though the lawmakers will be required to funnel the money to charity. “I don’t think we’ll go out of the honoraria business,” he said.