Word: arizona
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...Reform airfare rules. Lawmakers who really rate with lobbyists can often get a lift on a corporate jet and pay only first-class fare for the courtesy--a savings of time and thousands of dollars. Bills offered by both Feingold and Arizona Senator John McCain would require charter flights to be reimbursed at full market value, making them prohibitive. Chance of passage...
...couples their age and younger. It's no coincidence: the number of baby-boomer couples taking spa-oriented vacations accounts for 1 of every 3 spa-goers, up from 1 in 5 just five years ago, according to industry estimates. The most popular destinations in the U.S. are in Arizona, California, Florida, Texas and New York. Outside the U.S., top destinations include Mexico, the Caribbean, Italy, Thailand and Ireland...
Meanwhile, dozens of border guards, National Guard soldiers and other law-enforcement officials in Arizona have been charged with accepting bribes from FBI agents posing as Mexican drug smugglers. Towns in Florida and Connecticut--where Republican John Rowland quit the Governor's mansion in 2004 and went to jail last year for his part in a gifts-for-contracts scheme--are also charging their local officials. The FBI even had a local West Virginia politician facing corruption charges pose as a candidate in a state-legislature election in order to help uncover vote buying and other instances of election fraud...
House leaders, eager to burnish their image and expecting more ethics horror stories to emerge, are working with Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona on proposals to reform lobbying (see box). There is talk of lowering the limit, now $50, on the value of a single gift that a lobbyist can give a lawmaker or aide, provoking jokes about a $49.50 party to cash in before any change takes effect. Hastert is considering supporting a ban on junkets for members and aides that are financed by outside groups and restricting travel to government-paid trips. An aide involved...
...proliferation of earmarks--spending placed in legislation, often without public review, for specific projects. "Beating up on lobbyists is easy to do, but we have to put our own house in order, and at the top of that list is earmark reform," says Republican Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona. The most famous recent earmark was last fall's so-called Bridge to Nowhere--a provision that Representatives from Alaska inserted into a bill to spend close to $223 million to make it easier to reach a virtually uninhabited area of the state. In the end, the money was cut from...