On March 25, the Louisiana House signed off on a proposal that could quietly open the door to more foreign travel for state lawmakers, much of it shielded from public view. House Bill 260 cleared the chamber on a 74-20 vote and now moves to the Senate.
What HB 260 would change
HB260 would broaden the definition of “reasonable transportation” so legislators could accept free or paid travel to foreign countries when the trips are organized primarily for trade, cultural, diplomatic, educational or humanitarian purposes. Those trips would have to be sponsored by a foreign government or a civic, nonprofit, educational or political organization.
The change would add a new subsection to R.S. 42:1102 that spells out those categories and sponsors. According to the bill text on the Louisiana Legislature, the proposal inserts that foreign-travel language without creating any matching requirement that such trips be publicly reported.
No public disclosure for many trips
Under current law, lawmakers must report travel that is paid for when they are giving public speeches. HB260 would authorize compensated international travel that is not tied to a speaking engagement and therefore would not trigger those existing disclosure rules.
In practice, the bill would allow nonprofits, political organizations, foreign governments and similar sponsors to pick up the tab for international travel without lawmakers having to reveal who paid, what the trip cost or even that it happened at all. As reported by New Orleans CityBusiness, the House advanced the measure without any debate on the floor.
Sponsor says transparency could be added
Rep. C. Travis Johnson, D-Vidalia, who is carrying HB260, told reporters he is open to tightening things up on the transparency side and said the lack of a reporting requirement was not intentional.
“I would be in favor of adjusting the bill to require that information about the trips be made public,” Johnson said in an interview. He also said an outside group offered him a trip to Israel last year that he turned down, and that he has been invited to travel with Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain on trips to Cuba and London.
Ethics precedent
The state Board of Ethics has previously taken a hard line on foreign travel funded by outside sponsors. In a 2015 advisory opinion, the board concluded that lawmakers could not accept a paid trip to Israel from the American Israel Education Foundation because it did not fit within the limited U.S./Canada exception and therefore counted as a prohibited “thing of value.” That written opinion is posted on the Louisiana Board of Ethics website.
What happens next
The House journal shows that HB260 was read a third time and passed on March 25, with 74 members voting in favor and 20 opposed, and that it was then ordered to the Senate for consideration.
According to the Louisiana Legislature's bill page, the measure is now pending in the Senate. If senators sign off and the governor approves it, lawmakers would be able to accept certain kinds of international travel paid by outside groups without the public reporting requirements that now apply to some trips. Lawmakers in the upper chamber, along with transparency advocates and ethics officials, will be watching to see whether any disclosure rules are added as the bill moves forward.
