Colorado’s House of Representatives Spending From 2020 to 2021
How exploring spending data throughout the pandemic helps us hold our leaders accountable
From the beginning of 2020 to date, America, like the rest of the world, has struggled to deal with the novel Coronavirus outbreaks that have left us all bound to our screens, adopting new ways of life and work as we all Zoomed in to our regular obligations in lieu of face to face interaction. So to did the world of politics have to change, as a new presidential election loomed on the horizon while the virus continued to force the world to readjust to our new circumstances.
I decided to take a look at some data provided from the House of Representatives and converted to a workable format by Propublica.org, and took some time to analyze the spending of Colorado’s congress men and women across the last year. To get an idea of how the politicians that represent me and the rest of us here in Colorado in congress are spending our money during one of the years we have all needed solid representation the most, let’s take a look at the spending from Q1 of 2020 to Q3 of 2020, by each political office in the state.
An interesting note here is Ken Buck, Colorado’s 4th District representative, despite having by far the lowest amount spent in total, was the second highest spender in the travel category, spending $34194.55, topped only by Doug Lamborn’s travel spending of $37211.21. For context, the average across the country was a mere $5010.32, while Colorado’s was $7910.01. While I don’t have past numbers to show, the relative jump from 2020 when the pandemic was at it’s most chaotic to later in 2021 helps to illustrate just how small these numbers are in comparison.
Colorado’s average travel expenditure average was $13052.42 in the first 3 quarters of 2021, which is already a 65% increase from 2020. However, our outliers stand out even more, with Ken Buck’s spending increasing 109% and Doug Lamborn’s going up by 72%. It’s also worth noting the incredibly large sum spent by Joe Neguse on supplies and materials, which comes from a data point given by the 2021 data including an unlabeled “total” amount of $669627.70 (possibly amount spent to date), that wasn’t present in the other data.
While on the subject of travel expenditure, one can certainly note the difference in spending across party lines.
While in 2020, travel expenses are notably low due to the coronavirus pandemic, all of the republican representatives (Ken Buck, Dough Lamborn, and Scott Tipton) spent a notable portion on lodging, along with Joe Neguse on the democratic side to some extent. While I can’t be sure about how many trips were made, the fact that such a significant difference between the two parties is worth taking into account and analyzing further.
In 2021, the pandemic raged on, though the world lived to cope a bit better with the circumstance. With this slow return to normal, so did the travelling habits of the republican representatives, spending more than two times on average than the democrats. As these republican senators travelled more, they also spent a much more significant amount on lodging (as seen in the lime green above), with representative Boebert spending the most significant chunk of her travel budget on her accommodations.
With hundreds of thousands in collective total travel spending, along with totals amounting in the millions of dollars, it’s important to see how these offices are being run, and an interesting insight into that is how those within them are being paid.
The average spending by the House of Representatives in Colorado is around $~23000*, about $4,000 higher than the average across the country of $~17,000*. This isn’t to say it’s the same all around, but with the cost of living in Colorado being far higher than most places in the country, this is little surprise. The laggard this time is newcomer from 2019 Joe Neguse of District 2, with the lowest median pay, along with the lowest 50%.
In 2021, Joe Neguse’s median pay near the floor of his average payouts, likely due to many small payments to different people. For most, it seems that the overall 50% pay has actually gone down despite record inflation nearly across the board, barring Diana Degette’s payouts. While this analysis certainly doesn’t paint the full picture, it is always interesting to look at how much those working for the politicians that represent us make. Their work often is the foundation for the work done by our Congress men and women, and by taking a look at how that money is spent and where it’s going, along with things like travel expenses and any other data us as the people can get our hands on, we can hold those in power accountable and help them to represent their constituents even better in times like now when it matters most.
- Totaled and averaged by payee
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