The Voting Section at the Department of Justice is going on yet another field trip. Next week, the entire Voting Section will be travelling to the L. William Seidman Conference Center in Arlington, Virginia for a three day retreat. The retreat will take place on January 18, 19 and 20. The topic will be redistricting.
The Seidman Center room costs $1,500 per day to rent. Over three days, the cost to the taxpayers will be $4,500 plus the meals purchased for the employees, plus ancillary transportation reimbursements. Not big dollars, for sure. But it is thousands of tax dollars that someone elsewhere in America earned and sent to Washington that simply didn’t need to be spent. President Obama has vowed that he wants federal agencies to cut wasteful or unnecessary spending. The overseers of the Voting Section obviously didn’t get the memo.
One might also question the wisdom of shutting down an entire office for three days. Then again, based on the litigation activity of the Voting Section, that really isn’t a problem.
So where else could they hold the retreat for free? Lots of places. For starters, the public press room on the 7th floor at the RFK building is used all the time for such gatherings. The tables are regularly rearranged for events this size. Of course the Great Hall at RFK is another place where events like this take place all the time. Both are available at no cost to taxpaying Americans.
In an economy as bad as it is, and with people hurting everywhere, wasting thousands of tax dollars on a retreat when free options exist is unfortunate. This is what happens when zero oversight occurs, either by the media or by a Congress. That appears to be changing, fast.