Dem Sen. Tammy Baldwin may have broken COVID rules on fall 2020 NYC trip
Sen. Tammy Baldwin may have flouted New York’s COVID restrictions on a taxpayer-funded trip to Gotham in late 2020, according to a new report.
Baldwin (D-Wis.), 61, traveled to the Big Apple Nov. 5-9, 2020, as COVID-19 cases were on the rise nationwide and days before the senator herself urged Americans to “just stay home,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The newspaper found Baldwin’s constituents paid $630 for her to fly from Madison to New York, where her partner, Maria Brisbane, lives and works as a private wealth adviser.
The senator filed an expense report covering the period from Oct. 27 to Nov. 9, 2020, and listing the Madison-New York jaunt as part of a longer journey to and from Washington, DC — where she co-owns a $1.3 million condo with Brisbane — at a total cost of $955.70, federal records show.
Under New York’s COVID travel advisory at the time, out-of-state visitors were asked to observe a 14-day quarantine unless they returned two negative COVID-19 tests: one taken three days before their arrival and the second after a self-imposed three-day quarantine upon arrival.
The New York State Department of Health recorded more than 2,000 hospitalizations on Nov. 17, 2020, due to COVID-19 — the highest number of cases it had seen since the summer.
That same day, Baldwin urged her more than 100,000 Twitter followers to “Avoid gatherings with folks outside your household” and “Stay home if you can.”
Wisconsin also saw a surge of thousands of cases that month.
Baldwin’s campaign did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Journal Sentinel columnist Daniel Bice said Baldwin’s office claimed after an initial query about the trip that it had been “mislabeled” by a staffer as official travel — and that the senator has since reimbursed the government “without being asked.”
“It takes a special kind of arrogance to tell Wisconsin taxpayers not to see their loved ones for the holidays while you bill them for a vacation to see your girlfriend,” Tate Mitchell, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement. “Tammy Baldwin should change her campaign slogan to ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’”
The Wisconsin Democrat is seeking a third term next year. Her potential Republican opponents include banking and asset manager Eric Hovde, businessman Scott Mayor and former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke.
Baldwin began making visits to New York City soon after she apparently met Brisbane at a fundraiser in 2018.
The Journal Sentinel calculated she has spent $3,631.34 on nine flights to the Big Apple from Wisconsin or DC since then. Federal regulations allow senators to be reimbursed for official business trips or when coming back to DC following personal trips.
On at least eight of the trips, Baldwin billed taxpayers while traveling on official business, while using her own money or frequent-flyer points to cover parts of her travels deemed personal.
For example, in the spring of 2022, according to the Journal Sentinel, Baldwin flew to Wisconsin for a series of official events while the Senate was on its Easter break.
She then used frequent-flyer points to fly to Newark Liberty International Airport April 16, and stayed in New York for more than a week.
That September, taxpayers picked up a $445 tab for a trip from DC to NYC, where Baldwin’s office said she toured the International Mail Facility at John F. Kennedy International Airport, accompanied by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf.
As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Baldwin was chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, which oversees the FDA.
However, Bice questioned why Baldwin did not opt to visit a similar mail facility at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, closer to her home state.
Califf did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
