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In the past five years, special interests have paid for 31 of Boehner’s 36 recorded domestic and international trips. On 22 of those 31 privately funded trips Boehner took his wife. The average cost for each of the 31 trips was about $4,000.
Sallie Mae provided one of the three trips in 2003 to West Palm Beach, Fla.; its executives have donated more than $150,000 to Boehner since 2001.
The lender’s lobbyist threw a party for Boehner on Sept. 30, 2004, with the lawmaker collecting checks from 34 of Sallie Mae’s executives that day.
Seymour said Boehner did not use his committee post to benefit the lender, refusing to approve the interest rate and lending rules changes Sallie Mae wanted last year. “Any attempt to correlate their political contributions to policy is patently false on its face,” Seymour said.
But Boehner later was quoted in news reports as telling an audience of lenders he had “enough rabbits up my sleeve” and many of the Sallie Mae-preferred rules were inserted in the final bill negotiated by the House and Senate. The House still must vote on technical changes to the bill by the Senate.
One of Boehner’s supporters, Rep. Anne Northup, R-Ky., is sold on the Ohio millionaire. She said Boehner helped save a pension overhaul bill last year that seemed doomed until he organized last-minute support.
“Leadership couldn’t quite get the energy to pass it … and the clock was going to run out on it,” Northup said.
Boehner’s supporters say he would give Republicans a more congenial image after a decade of DeLay’s hard-nosed tactics to keep GOP members in line.