Kansas’ Roger Marshall used taxpayer dollars to fly near his Florida home. Is that legal?
Sen. Roger Marshall has taken at least seven official trips to the area around his vacation home in Sarasota, Florida, in the four years he’s spent in the Senate, according to Senate expense reports.
The trips – some of which were directly to Florida and others that included a series of destinations, with stops in Kansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Idaho and Oklahoma – totaled several thousand in flights, per diem expenses and transportation.
It is illegal to use taxpayer money to pay for personal travel. Marshall’s office said each of the trips to Florida were for official purposes.
“Each flight was approved by Senate Rules and admissible official travel that included visits to military bases, agriculture interests, and meetings regarding health care policy,” said Charyssa Parent, a spokeswoman for Marshall.
The trips, first reported by Politico, come as Marshall in recent years has increased his presence in Florida, where he owns a vacation home appraised at $1.2 million – eight times more than the hunting cabin he calls home in Kansas.
It is unclear how much time Marshall spends at either his cabin in Kansas or his home in Florida – beyond a few pictures posted on social media.
Parent said Marshall only “averages three trips a year” to visit his children and grandchildren in Florida, which indicates at least some of his visits with his grandchildren have included official travel.
Marshall spent at least part of his Christmas holiday in Florida in both 2021 and 2022, based on his official expenses. In both years, Marshall took trips that lasted from the end of December to early January and included stops in Sarasota, where two of his four adult children also have homes.
While both trips included other cities – including some in Kansas – in both instances Marshall made two trips to Sarasota.
Kedric Payne, the senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit government watchdog, said that while it is illegal to use taxpayer funds for personal use, there is occasionally a blurred line when it comes to personal travel tacked on to a business trip.
“It starts to get complicated, where on your way to official business you take a personal trip,” Payne said. “That can be organized in a way where you get reimbursement for the official part, but not the personal part.”
While Marshall’s office said the flights were approved by the Senate Rules Committee, Payne said there have been examples of lawmakers who faced federal charges for the misuse of taxpayer money or campaign funds in the past.
Former Rep. Aaron Schock, an Ohio Republican, was indicted for spending government funds to redecorate his Capitol Hill office in the style of Downton Abbey, among other examples of misusing taxpayer money. Schock agreed to a settlement with the federal government for $110,000 in restitution and taxes.
Then there’s the recent example of former Rep. George Santos, a New York Republican who pleaded guilty to misusing campaign funds to pay for luxury goods, gambling and even to pay his own rent.
“Voters have a right to know that their public officials are good stewards with the public funds,” Payne said. “And when you have a member of Congress potentially misspending taxpayer money, you have a big problem.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2024 at 12:02 PM.
