Politics makes strange travelers
Texas Sen. “Big John” Cornyn racked up the biggest travel bill of any senator during the last six months: $152,000, according to state newspapers.
He calls such travel “essential.” At the same time, he voted against bringing home stimulated dollars to his state.
At least one blogger agreed about the “essential” nature of his travel, saying “Come on, cut Cornie some slack, he might have been flying on Continental, American, or Southwest and putting that money into good ole Texas companies.”
But another said he is a hack and a hypocrite. “The uneducated rural folks keep falling for his BS and vote for him. The rest of us, and our great state, suffer. Too bad he just can’t be removed. We deserve better.”
• In other elected official moves, the Florida Legislature banned most out-of-state travel by state employees. But the travel restriction doesn’t apply to lawmakers themselves, dozens of whom are headed to national conferences this week.
• South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s recent admission of an extramarital affair led to a search of his state travel records which found he billed almost $500,000 of state-funded travel including routinely billing taxpayers for high-end airline seats, according to a POLITICO analysis.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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