WP: Hill Leaders Often Take Corporate Jets (Blunt and Cronies)

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Hill Leaders Often Take Corporate Jets
Companies Offer Discount Flights and Gain Access

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Derek Willis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, May 5, 2005; Page A01

When House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) left Washington last August to attend a friend's funeral in his home state and give a political speech in Ohio, he didn't wait in long security lines for a nonstop commercial flight.

Instead, he hopped aboard a waiting private jet at Dulles International Airport that belongs to the corporation that owns Cracker Barrel stores -- just one of about 30 companies with legislative interests before Congress that have provided this service to Blunt.

Blunt is not alone in enjoying frequent corporate jet travel. He and 11 other current or former House and Senate leaders -- each with exceptional power to determine the fate of legislation and regulation -- flew on corporate-owned jets at least 360 times from January 2001 to December 2004, according to a review of records by The Washington Post.

Blunt and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) are the top two users of such jets among the current leadership, together accounting for at least 140 trips during the past two election cycles -- an average of one flight every 10 days. They are followed by Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who used corporate jets for at least 38, 15, and seven flights, respectively.

More:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/04/AR2005050402393.html