Dems to introduce bill to ban government spending at Trump-owned hotels

A new bill being introduced by Democrats seeks to bar government spending at properties owned by President Trump or other officials.

The HOTEL Act — Heightened Oversight of Travel, Eating and Lodging — looks to ban members of the executive branch from staying at one of Trump’s properties, The Washington Post reported.

“Executive branch officials like the President and cabinet secretaries should not have a profit motive in the travel decisions made by the federal employees under their supervision,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the lead sponsor, said in a statement.

He called it a “common sense bill.” 

{mosads}The bill makes it so that “federal employees are not subject to undue pressure to patronize businesses owned by their top-level managers,” he said.

Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have co-sponsored the bill.

U.S. Secret Service personnel would not have to abide by the ban, according to the Post, but their expenses would regularly be looked at by the Office of Government Ethics.

Earlier this month, the Post reported that the government paid more than $1,000 for an official to stay at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

The payment of $1,092 was made to reserve two nights at the resort in March. The club charged a discount-free “rack rate” of $546 per night.

This is not the first time lawmakers have tried to use legislation to try to halt federal dollars from being spent at Trump properties.

In August, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) proposed an amendment to a federal spending package that would prohibit taxpayer funds from being used at businesses owned by Trump.