Island resorts, Disney stays: A senator uses campaign funds for family travel.
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 8 hours ago
- 6 min read
By BAYLISS WAGNER and KELLEN BROWNING
Super Bowl tickets worth $37,500. Flights to Puerto Rico, Nantucket, St. Barths and Miami for his wife, children and an au pair. More than $20,000 at Ritz-Carlton hotels. More than $26,000 in childcare.
These purchases are just a sampling of expenditures that Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. and potential presidential candidate in 2028, has billed to his campaign accounts since 2019 — money from political supporters raised with the understanding that it would be used to help him or like-minded allies win elections.
Many of Gallego’s expenditures are common in Congress, an institution where members regularly court wealthy donors at lavish events. Spending on childcare is not only allowed but also increasingly frequent, reflecting a growing cohort of younger lawmakers who must balance the demands of family with political activities.
After news reports highlighted some of Gallego’s spending in recent weeks, he defended the travel as legal and appropriate costs for fundraising trips. But the Justice Department is now investigating the senator for suspected campaign finance violations, according to a person familiar with the inquiry who requested anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. It was not clear if it was Gallego’s travel that triggered the investigation, which was first reported by Axios on Monday.
In a separate inquiry, the Senate Ethics Committee on Monday cleared Gallego of campaign finance violations. A Gallego spokesperson slammed the Justice Department investigation as politically motivated, pointing to President Donald Trump’s deployment of the Justice Department to target perceived enemies.
“I will at times bring my wife and children with me to these retreats and fund-raisers,” Gallego wrote recently on social media in response to news reports of his spending. “Are these at nice venues? Yes, it’s where the donors are, and it’s part of campaigning.”
Aside from questions of legality, the expenditures shed light on the limits of campaign finance laws intended to curtail unethical behavior by federal candidates. Good-government advocates said that some of Gallego’s expenditures cross an ethical line. Using campaign funds for personal use can send a message to the public that elected leaders are enriching themselves from public office rather than working for constituents, they said.
Such behavior also could be perceived as breaking a pact with donors who believe their money is going to political activity. Gallego’s spending habits could prompt scrutiny from donors as he weighs whether to mount a 2028 presidential bid.
“Unless the kids are also making a pitch and working the room,” said Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in election law and government ethics, “it really is blurring the line between a campaign activity and a personal vacation.”
‘Where the donors are’
Some expenditures, including a portion of Gallego’s childcare charges and his trips to the Caribbean and Miami, were first reported by Politico and The Daily Beast. Other details, including trips to Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Puerto Rico, have not been previously reported.
A review of expenditure filings and travel records obtained by The New York Times, as well as interviews with several people familiar with Gallego’s spending, found that the senator repeatedly brought his family with him to vacation destinations and billed tens of thousands of dollars in flights to his campaign accounts just in 2025. Several of these outings coincided with personal events or celebrations, such as his wife’s birthday in Miami.
Mixing personal travel with fundraising duties is common among lawmakers, Federal Election Commission records show. The question that is hard to answer, government ethics experts say, is whether members are tacking on donor meetings to family trips simply to use campaign funds to pay for them.
Records viewed by the Times show that just last year, Gallego’s political operation paid for his wife, Sydney, and one or more of the couple’s children to fly at least 18 times, often between Washington and his hometown, Phoenix, but also to Miami, Puerto Rico and Nantucket. The au pair for the family’s children, who are all younger than 10, joined them on 11 of those flights.
Gallego paid to fly his wife, children and au pair to Disney properties twice in 2025, for fundraisers hosted by fellow members of Congress. His campaign spent nearly $1,400 at Walt Disney World in Orlando last April and $1,000 at the Grand California Hotel at Disneyland in August, per FEC records.
Additionally, over the 2025-26 New Year’s holiday, Gallego’s campaign spent more than $5,000 to fly him, his wife and three children to San Juan, Puerto Rico. He dined with four prospective donors there, his campaign said. One of them, Anthony Maceira, gave $5,000 to Gallego’s victory fund Dec. 30, 2025, but the others did not contribute during or after the trip, per FEC records.
The FEC allows lawmakers to use campaign funds to take family along on campaign or official events but explicitly distinguishes those expenses from “family travel to vacation locales, or other examples of personal uses of campaign funds.”
One of Gallego’s most extravagant fundraising expenses came alongside disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, an erstwhile friend of Gallego who resigned in April amid accusations that he had sexually assaulted a former staffer. Swalwell has denied the allegations.
Swalwell and Gallego set up a joint committee before the 2023 Super Bowl called the “Swallego Victory Fund,” raising about $55,000 the week of the game and charging about $35,000 in tickets to it. They shuttered the committee in January 2025.
Most recently, in March, Gallego and his wife flew to St. Barths, in the Caribbean. Gallego’s office said it was part of a political swing that included Puerto Rico and San Diego. In St. Barths, the Gallegos attended the birthday festivities of Carlos Zaffirini, a family friend, lobbyist and Gallego donor who also runs the consulting company where Sydney Gallego works.
Gallego’s political operation paid more than $2,000 for his and his wife’s travel, per records reviewed by the Times.
Zaffirini did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Gallego said all the trips included fundraising activities. They provided evidence for many of the events, but not all of them. In Puerto Rico, Gallego’s office said, the senator met with donors.
Any interaction with a donor during these trips would allow Gallego to expense them, experts said.
Gallego largely drew from his main campaign committee, which federal regulations allow to be used for travel, meals or childcare, as long as the expenses are tied to a candidate’s political activity. Such committees are not supposed to fund personal activities or costs that would be incurred regardless of political duties.
Gallego also billed some of his family’s flights and hotel rooms — including transportation to St. Barths in March — to his leadership political action committee, a type of committee that many officeholders establish to help candidates raise money for one another.
Gallego’s leadership PAC is called Juntos, which means “together” in Spanish. These PACs are far less stringently regulated than campaign committees, with virtually no restrictions on personal use. Some critics characterize them as legal slush funds.
“The Federal Election Commission has made it extremely easy to spend donor money on personal expenses without facing any legal consequences,” said Erin Chlopak, a former FEC lawyer and the senior director of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan government ethics organization.
‘I’m not a millionaire’
Gallego said the childcare expenses reflect a tricky balancing act that many Americans can relate to: juggling the demands of parenting young children while managing a travel-heavy job.
“The only reason this looks unique is because a majority of members of Congress are millionaires who can afford to attend campaign fund-raisers without having to worry about the cost of child care,” he said in a statement. “I’m not a millionaire, and I have a blended family, so I don’t have that option.”
Gallego is one of the least wealthy members of the Senate and has reported that his debts exceed his assets. As a senator, he is paid $174,000 per year.
Gallego’s office declined to make him available for an interview.
Paying to bring his children on luxury travel might be legal, but it’s still ethically questionable, campaign finance experts said.
“There’s always a difference between what is provably illegal and what is ethically uncomfortable,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning legal watchdog group.
Sydney Gallego’s use of a campaign car appeared to be more clearly improper, experts said.
In 2024, when Gallego was a House member running for the Senate, the campaign leased an SUV that his wife drove at times for her personal use, according to three people with knowledge of the activity. That prompted the campaign to rent an additional car, two of the people said.
The lease and several other rental charges show up in FEC records. Gallego’s office said the “vehicles were used for campaign purposes” but did not respond to questions about whether his wife drove one for other uses.
Experts said such an expenditure typically would be a violation if the campaign was not paid back and the usage was not disclosed. The records do not detail Sydney Gallego’s use of the vehicle, nor do they document any reimbursement.
Chlopak said it was a problem when officeholders used political donations to “support a luxury lifestyle,” even when legal.
“It only further diminishes trust in government,” she said, “at a time when what we need is exactly the opposite of that.”