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Reporters from American Radio Works, Marketplace and a team of students from the Medill School of Journalism built a database from public records of travel disclosures made by members of Congress. They found that while lawmakers are banned from accepting gifts worth more than $50, they can, and do, accept "lavish, luxurious trips - often worth tens of thousands of dollars" from nonprofit organizations. Further reporting revealed that many of these nonprofits had lobbyists on their boards. The ten congress members who took the most trips averaged $143,000 apiece in sponsored travel.
