Senate Democrats Leave on a Corporate Jet Plane
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 13, 2002; Page A05
Right after voting yesterday morning to limit debate on legislation clamping down on corporate abuses, 16 Democratic senators flew on corporate jets from Washington to Nantucket, Mass., for a weekend retreat with 250 major campaign donors.
The jets were supplied by BellSouth Corp., Eli Lilly and Co., FedEx and AFLAC. All have given large sums of "soft money" to both major parties, but Republicans generally have received the majority.
The cost of using the jets -- estimated by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at just over $44,000 -- will be counted as in-kind soft-money contributions to the committee. Tovah Ravitz-Meehan, DSCC communications director, said invitations to the weekend gathering were sent to those who had given $20,000 or more. There are no official events or presentations planned, she said, although some senators up for reelection this fall might discuss their campaigns with the donors.
Asked about the propriety of Democrats -- many of whom have criticized President Bush and congressional Republicans for their ties to corporations accused of accounting abuses -- voting to close debate on corporate-accountability legislation and then flying to a resort in corporate jets, Ravitz-Meehan said: "I don't think there is any tie between the vote and their mode of travel." Getting to Nantucket, she said, is "logistically difficult, and expensive to reach commercially."
On the US Airways Web site, round-trip tickets between Washington's Reagan National Airport and Nantucket ranged from $303 to $1,124, depending on when reservations were made.
DSCC staffers provided seven newspaper articles describing various Republicans' use of private jets.
The Democratic senators attending the Nantucket retreat are DSCC chairman Patty Murray (Wash.), Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), Bill Nelson (Fla.), Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Jon S. Corzine (N.J.), Byron L. Dorgan (N.D.), Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), John F. Kerry (Mass.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.).
A small number of senators flew commercially, but Ravitz-Meehan said she did not know which ones.
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