Search Power Trips Database
Disclosure by travelers can be incomplete, so review the forms filed for trips by clicking the View link in the "Total Cost" column on the results page. It is recommended that any sums used for publication be rounded.
Guide to using the 'Power Trips' database
By Helena Bengtsson
Database Editor
WASHINGTON, June 28, 2006 — The Center for Public Integrity's "Power Trips" database contains information from about 23,000 travel disclosure forms completed by members of Congress and their staffers for trips taken from Jan. 1, 2000, through June 30, 2005 (see Methodology and How We Did It). Searches can be performed by:
- "Member of Congress": Returns all trips approved by that member's office.
- "Sponsor": Returns all trips paid for fully or in part by that company or organization.
- "Traveler": Returns all the trips taken by that person.
- "Destination": Returns all trips that include that place.
- "State": Returns all trips approved by congressional members of that state.
- "Before" and/or "After": Returns results of all trips taken during that the specified date range (remember to check the appropriate boxes to perform date searches).
The database uses free text for searches by "Traveler," "Sponsor" and approving "Member of Congress."
These searches could return results in addition to those expected. For example, a search for trips taken by "Berman" also will return results for trips taken by travelers with any name containing that exact string of characters, such as "Lieberman"; clicking on a particular name in the search results will return only trips for that person. The same search principle applies to the other two free text searches.
This project is made possible in part by the Charles Lewis Special Projects Fund, underwritten by the Annenberg Foundation.