Lawmakers spent millions under a new program that doesn’t require receipts

The lack of receipt requirements in the reimbursement system is a “ridiculous loophole,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the good government group Public Citizen. “It’s obviously going to be very difficult to determine whether it’s a legitimate payment or not,” Holman added.

The program has only a few strict rules: Lawmakers cannot be reimbursed for the principal or interest on their mortgages, they can only get reimbursed for the days they actually work or fly to DC, and they cannot claim back more than their actual amount . expenditure. They are also subject to daily spending limits set by the General Services Administration. Members are “strongly encouraged,” but not required, to track their spending, according to guidance from the House Committee on Administration.

The same rules apply to every member. But lawmakers’ reimbursement requests have varied widely, and because the program does not require receipts or detailed disclosure of what members pay, taxpayers must take lawmakers’ word that they are following the rules.

Of the 435 voting members of the House of Representatives, 319 members — 153 Democrats and 166 Republicans — received reimbursement for some of their food or shelter costs last year, along with three representatives from U.S. territories. The remaining 116 members received no money from the reimbursement program, according to a Washington Post review of the first 11 months of data released by the House of Representatives.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the program’s top funder, was reimbursed for nearly $30,000 in housing costs and more than $10,000 in food in 2023. He was reimbursed more than $4,000 for lodging in two different months and more than $3,000 in five different months.

A spokesman for Gaetz said he was reimbursed for subsistence expenses on days when the House was not in session, but Gaetz remained in Washington on official business for statements related to his post on the federal government’s Select Committee on Armaments.

“Representative. Gaetz has always complied with House rules regarding congressional reimbursements,” a spokesperson for Gaetz emailed in a statement. “In 2023, Rep. Gaetz spent a lot of time working on the Weaponization Subcommittee, requiring his presence in Washington, D.C., on days when there were often no votes, which meant additional reimbursement costs to take statements.”

Other members of the Armaments Committee were paid significantly less than Gaetz.

Some members of Congress who own homes in the Washington area, including Reps. Patrick T. McHenry (RN.C.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Mike McCaul (R-Tex.), have chosen not to participate to participate in the program at all. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who owns a $1 million home in Virginia, was reimbursed less than $1,500 each month.

But other DC-area homeowners, including Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), requested significantly higher refunds than Banks for several months of 2023.

Mace, who co-owns a $1,649,000 Capitol Hill mansion that she purchased with her then-fiancé, Patrick Bryant, in 2021, has a total of Spent $19,395, an average of more than $2,000 per year. month. She spent more than $3,000 on lodging in January, March and May.

Swalwell, who bought a $1,215,000 home in Washington’s Eckington neighborhood, was reimbursed nearly $19,000 for living expenses for 11 months in 2023. In May of that year, he received $2,838 in living expenses.

As homeowners, Mace and Swalwell are not allowed to ask taxpayers to cover their mortgage payments, and can only pay taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities and other incidental costs.

“There is nothing ‘average’ about having three children and a wife trying to live between two expensive areas,” Swalwell spokeswoman Cassie Baloue said in a statement. “The Congressman’s expenses reflect the true cost of working in DC and have been signed off by the House Administration.”

According to figures provided by his spokeswoman, Swalwell owed about $1,144 a month in taxes and insurance alone, and incurred other maintenance costs on his home that she declined to specify.

“Every month it is different in terms of the maintenance costs that Rep. Swalwell will be reimbursed,” she added. “Everything he does is allowed.”

Mace was told by people involved in her office’s finances that she could not justify claiming more than about $1,800 a month for expenses on the mansion, according to two people familiar with the discussions who, as did others interviewed for this story, speaking about the condition of anonymity to make private conversations public. One source showed The Post a document that detailed Mace’s monthly expenses on the mansion and calculated them at $1,726.

Mace instructed her staff to seek the maximum reimbursement each day the House was in session, regardless of her actual expenses, two former staffers and one other person familiar with the matter alleged to The Post. Mace denies that claim.

Mace denied wrongdoing and refused to explain her expenses in detail. Her office did not answer questions about maintenance and other costs related to the home she co-owns with her ex-fiance. Mace owns 28 percent of the house, according to the deed, but did not answer questions about what percentage of the bills she paid. She did not declare any costs for the fourth quarter of 2023, but she did not explain why.

“We follow all the rules for refunds,” said Gabrielle Lipsky, a spokeswoman for Mace, who said the office found $300,000 in other savings last year that were not related to the refund program.

Mace has been at war with a group of her former staffers for months. Her former chief of staff, Daniel Hanlon, took steps to run against her in a primary earlier this year. He later bowed out. Mace’s main opponent in the hotly contested June 11 primary is Catherine Templeton, a former South Carolina gubernatorial candidate who has accused Mace of flopping “for fame.”

Misuse of taxpayer funds under the membership allowance could violate both House rules and federal law, said Kedric Payne, former deputy chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics who now serves as vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government watchdog group. . Payne said anyone who abuses the program could face corruption charges similar to those against Aaron Schock, a former Illinois congressman who used government and campaign funds to remodel his Capitol Hill office in the style of the TV show ‘Downton Abbey’.

“The new travel reimbursement rules target very specific expenses and have strict dollar limits,” Payne said. “Any member who violates these rules and submits false refund claims may face civil and criminal penalties. The Office of Congressional Ethics regularly investigates members’ blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars. Voters have the right to know that their elected officials are not using public funds for personal expenses.”

The member compensation program is popular, but any perception of unfair enrichment could jeopardize it. Congress is already one of the least trusted government institutions, and 81 percent of Americans believe that members of Congress do a somewhat or very poor job of keeping their personal financial interests separate from their work in Congress, according to a poll from Pew Research from September 2023.

The bipartisan House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress proposed the member compensation program in 2022 as an alternative to increasing members’ salaries. Defenders of the program have argued that it matches the benefits offered to lawmakers’ colleagues in the private sector and the executive branch and that it encourages diversity of representation.

Members of Congress earn $174,000 a year, which is about twice the median household income in the US, but they typically have to support two households: one in Washington, an expensive urban area, and another in their home district. Many travel long distances at great expense.

Some good-government and anti-corruption groups argue that higher salaries for lawmakers would make public services more attractive to a broader group of Americans and discourage corruption. But members of Congress have not given themselves a raise since 2009 because voting to do so is considered politically unpalatable. Some lawmakers have moved into their own offices to cover costs.

“I wish members would give themselves a raise that they probably deserve, and then we’d all move on,” said a staffer involved in congressional accounting who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program publicly. “But they don’t have the backbone to do that, so (they gave) the members a raise through this loophole that allows abuse because there are no records kept and no receipts.”