Searching for symptoms of political shirking: Congressional foreign travel

Despite the hypothesized propensity for shirking to mark legislative instit utions, the evidence is rather equivocal; moreover, most of the research ha s focused exclusively on legislator voting, thereby constraining whatever g eneralizations might emerge. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate over the question of political shirking by extending the range o f phenomena examined to include congressional foreign travel. Our analysis provides evidence that opportunism is a problem in Congress. We find that l ast-period problems have arisen in the area of foreign travel, and that inc reased scrutiny to the problem on the part of Congress only shifted consump tion patterns, i.e., legislators began taking foreign junkets near, but not at the end of, their legislative careers. Not all foreign travel should be construed as worthless junketing since there is strong evidence that some foreign travel is related to members' responsibilities on congressional com mittees.