Members of Congress regularly commute between Washington, D.C., and their home districts with taxpayers paying the tab, but some choose to spend more than others – a few even charter private jets, an investigation by The Center Square found.

When it came to charter – or private airplane – travel, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., was the top spender with nearly $63,000 paid for charter flights since 2019. U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., was second, paying $18,295 in the same time period for five flights from Executive Aircraft Leasing, LLC., data from the Members’ Representational Allowance data shows.

When it comes to overall travel expenses, the office of U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, was in the top three of both airfare and lodging for all of Congress since 2019, including some pricey reimbursements to himself – not airline or charter companies – for flights.

David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, said there have to be better controls on travel to avoid abuses.

“Just because Congress has to do something, it doesn’t mean there can’t be some sort of oversight,” he told The Center Square. “And I know this would probably take a lot of work, and maybe it can be done with AI at this point,” but someone should be “reviewing flights and receipts to make sure that there’s not excessive spending.”

Johnson’s office did not set up an interview with The Center Square, but his spokeswoman Kristen Blakely pointed out that his at-large district covers a lot of ground.

“Congressman Johnson’s district is enormous – it takes more than eight hours to drive from one corner of South Dakota to the other,” she wrote in an email to The Center Square. “About once a year he charters a plane to conduct official business, after receiving the necessary approval from the House Administration Committee.”

Charter flights costing more than $7,500 must be preapproved by the United States Committee on House Administration, according to the member handbook, but the detailed spending receipts and approvals are not available to the public. Congress exempted itself from the Freedom of Information Act.

Blakely provided Johnson’s House administration committee approvals to The Center Square.

Johnson’s at-large district is the third largest after Alaska and Wyoming, but The Center Square could only find one flight that appeared to be private travel for the Alaska at-large representatives going back to 2019. Wyoming had none.

All House offices which submitted reimbursement for charter, or private jet, flights since 2019 totaled nearly $135,000, according to The Center Square analysis of 3 million lines of House spending data. That included a $20,711 charge to Security Aviation by the House Committee on Natural Resources.

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