Congress Campaign Funds Go for Pleasure Trips, Cars

Despite a law barring diversion of campaign funds for personal use, members of Congress continue to spend their political war chests on pleasure trips, luxury cars or limousines and even memberships in the House gymnasium, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The FEC has scheduled a hearing for today on proposals that would put new restrictions on campaign outlays that are primarily for personal benefit and do not advance candidates’ election prospects.

Fred Wertheimer, president of Common Cause, which describes itself as a citizens’ lobby, wants the agency to lay down tough new rules for use of campaign funds and then enforce them vigorously.

“The bottom line for us is, members of Congress should not be living off their campaign funds,” Wertheimer said. He will be a leadoff witness at the FEC hearing.

“If it’s arguably personal, they should not be allowed to spend campaign funds for it without making a very strong case that it’s justified,” he said.

Wertheimer said the FEC and the Senate and House ethics committees often have been negligent in enforcing a 1989 law that forbids “personal use” of money collected during election campaigns. At issue is how to define the vague phrase “personal use.”

Some veteran politicians contend that it is impossible to distinguish between an event related to reelection, such as a dinner with prominent supporters, and a personal evening with friends who are political allies.

But an analysis of spending records filed with the FEC before the 1992 election indicates that some expenses financed by campaign contributors confer considerable personal benefits on members of Congress or candidates for the Senate or House.

For example, $156,729 in campaign funds raised by Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.) were used to lease and maintain two “campaign cars” in New York and Washington over a six-year period ending Dec. 31, 1992. In addition, D’Amato’s campaign account paid $23,645 for limousines during that time.

One Lincoln Town Car was leased for $927 a month in Washington. Another Lincoln Town Car was leased for $647 a month in New York.

A spokesman for the senator defended the expenditures. “These are all reasonable expenses for car services and transportation associated with the campaign,” the spokesman said.

Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.) used campaign funds to pay a $4,028 bill at the Four Seasons hotel on Maui in Hawaii, after her 1992 election but before she was sworn in as a senator.

A spokeswoman said the Hawaiian trip was originally envisioned for campaign fund raising. When that did not work out as planned, Moseley-Braun did not seek compensation from the campaign for an equal amount of personal expenses, the spokeswoman said. The report filed with the FEC, however, did not reflect that she paid for the Maui hotel out of personal funds.

Her campaign treasury also paid an unusually high salary of $144,550 to Z. Kgosi Matthews, the manager of her campaign. He also collected thousands of dollars in unitemized reimbursements from the campaign.

Restaurant meals were frequently financed by campaign funds, although the cost of the repasts did not appear to be related to enhancing election chances for the lawmakers who ran up the bills.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), for example, used campaign money to pay for meals totaling $545 at a hotel in Jakarta and $349 at a hotel in Taiwan, along with smaller dinner bills in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. They were a small part of outlays over six years totaling $106,894 for restaurant meals that had no apparent connection to fund raising.

Inouye used campaign funds to finance 403 meals costing less than $200 each, including a $12.50 bill at the Szechuan Garden in Rockville, Md., and a $22.59 meal at the Wo Fat restaurant in Honolulu. A spokeswoman at the senator’s Honolulu office did not return a telephone call seeking comment on the expenditures.

Other lawmakers used campaign funds to pay $100 annual fees in the House gym, including Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) and Rep. Michael A. Andrews (D-Tex.). A spokesman for Hunter said the lawmaker has decided to pay his House gym membership--now $400 a year--out of his own pocket, although the FEC never frowned on the practice in the past.

Some campaign money indirectly benefited family members of candidates. Rep. Ralph M. Hall (D-Tex.) paid $17,277 in rent over a recent two-year period for a campaign office in a building owned by two of his sons. “I don’t see any problem with it. It’s convenient . . . right next to my congressional office,” Hall told The Times.

In addition, Hall used campaign funds to pay his daughter-in-law, Jodie Hall, $39,644 in 1991-92 as his only full-time employee. “I want to have somebody there I can trust with my money,” he said.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) paid himself $21,459 to rent campaign space on the ground floor of a condominium he owns.

Rep. Martin Frost (D-Tex.) used campaign funds to pay a $653 bill at the Doral Hotel in Miami in March, 1991, where he said he played golf on the famous Doral Open course with labor union backers attending winter meetings of the AFL-CIO in Florida. “It certainly was a difficult course, but it (the expense) was very much campaign-related,” Frost insisted.

Despite the disclaimers, members of Congress expect the FEC to crack down on the freewheeling use of campaign money that has occurred in the past.

“A lot of these rules will be changed, as well they should,” one congressional aide said.