Sugar Industry Pays for Congressional Trips to 'Build a Bench of Loyal Allies' — Langworthy's Office Took One

Ethics Source: House Clerk Gift Travel Filings + Howard Center for Investigative Journalism (CNS Maryland) DOCUMENTED PATTERN

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Why this matters in NY-23

NY-23 is an agricultural district. Decisions made by the U.S. House about commodity programs, crop insurance, biofuels, sugar tariffs, and trade policy land directly on dairy farms, vegetable growers, vineyards, and grain operations across the Southern Tier and Western New York. When industry groups invest in cultivating relationships with a Member of Congress’s office — paying for staff to attend multi-day on-site educational tours — that investment is not unique to NY-23, but it is documented to include this office.

This entry adds Rep. Langworthy’s office to the public record on a specific industry-trip pattern that has already been investigated nationally.

The Statement

Rep. Langworthy’s office accepted a sponsored, multi-day trip to Fargo, North Dakota, August 27–29, 2024. The sponsors were the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Education Foundation and the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association. The form was filed with the Clerk of the House by Allen Garnes, who LegiStorm identifies as Langworthy’s Legislative Assistant / Legislative Director.

Langworthy himself does not appear to have been the traveler. The trip does not appear on his 2024 Annual Financial Disclosure Schedule H — the only sponsored trip that does is the April 2024 American Israel Education Foundation trip to Israel, which Langworthy filed personally. Trips taken by staff are filed under the office’s record in the Gift Travel Filings database but do not appear on the Member’s personal financial disclosure. (See the related fact-check on this disclosure asymmetry.)

This entry is not about the existence of the trip — it is about the documented purpose of the trip program that paid for it.

The Documented Pattern

In November 2024, the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland (Capital News Service) published a national investigation titled “Sugar industry pays for House trips to help safeguard subsidies.” The piece, republished by the Star Tribune, documents:

  • At least 335 sponsored congressional trips paid for by sugar-industry-affiliated groups since 2012.
  • The Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association and a small number of related sugar groups account for the bulk of those filings.
  • Trips concentrate on House staff during the August recess, when staff have the most flexibility and Members are out of session.
  • The standard itinerary template includes presentations by RRVSEF executives and American Crystal Sugar Co. executives, on-site visits to growers’ farms (Beau Farms northeast of Fargo is a recurring stop), a ride-along on a sugarbeet harvester, and a tour of the American Crystal Sugar factory in Moorhead, MN.

The piece quotes Harrison Weber, Executive Director of the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association, on the program’s purpose:

“to build a new bench of loyal allies on Capitol Hill”

That quote — from the executive who runs the trip program — is the core of this fact-check. The sugar industry’s own executive describes the trips as a relationship-building program intended to produce policy allies. Langworthy’s office is one of the offices that participated in the 2024 cycle of that program.

Cross-Reference: The Same Office Took Two Other Ag-Industry Trips in the Same 9 Weeks

The 2024 Fargo sugarbeet trip was not isolated. Per the House Clerk Gift Travel Filings database, Langworthy’s office took three industry-sponsored agricultural trips between August 21 and October 24, 2024:

DatesLocationSponsorFiler
2024-08-21 → 22Westfield, INBeck’s Hybrids (corn/soybean seed genetics)Allen Garnes
2024-08-27 → 29Fargo, NDRed River Valley Sugarbeet Education Foundation + Growers AssociationAllen Garnes
2024-10-22 → 24Huntley, IL & Ottawa, ILGrowmark + Illinois Soybean Association Checkoff Board + Illinois Corn Marketing BoardAllen Garnes

All three filings were made by Allen Garnes. None appear on Langworthy’s 2024 Annual Financial Disclosure. All three fell during periods when the House was in recess (August recess and pre-election recess).

Cross-Reference: Subsequent Legislative Activity

A reasonable question: did the office produce legislative output for the trip sponsors’ specific industries in the months after?

Of Langworthy’s 32 sponsored bills + 364 cosponsorships in the 118th Congress (per GovTrack), only one bill in the 60-day windows around these three trips is unambiguously commodity-related: H.R. 9456, the Protecting American Agriculture from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024, which Langworthy cosponsored as an original on September 6, 2024 — eight days after the Fargo sugarbeet trip and the first opportunity to cosponsor anything after the August recess. The bill restricts foreign-adversary acquisition of U.S. agricultural land and seed-genetics IP — broadly relevant to the sugar industry but not specifically to its subsidy program.

No bill sponsored or cosponsored by Langworthy in the surrounding windows touches the sugar program directly (sugar tariff-rate quota, the Suspension Agreement with Mexico, or the sugar marketing allotment). The trip program’s stated purpose — “build a bench of loyal allies” — is about cultivating future positions, not necessarily about purchasing immediate votes.

Context

The Howard Center investigation is the public-record anchor for this entry. Its findings are the journalism’s findings, not this site’s. Two facts about the program that are independently documented in the Howard Center reporting and the Clerk’s database:

  1. The trips are legal. Sponsored congressional travel is governed by House Ethics Committee rules; pre-travel approval is required and the trip purpose, itinerary, and expenses are filed with the Clerk. The Howard Center investigation is about the pattern of the program, not its legality.
  2. The disclosure architecture creates asymmetry. A trip taken by a staff member appears on the office’s gift-travel record but does not appear on the Member’s personal financial disclosure. A constituent looking only at the Member’s Schedule H sees a much smaller picture than a constituent who knows to also check the Gift Travel Filings database. (See the Disclosure Asymmetry fact-check for the full breakdown.)

Questions This Raises

  1. What did Langworthy’s office produce — meetings with sugar-program stakeholders, statements on sugar policy, votes on related amendments — in the months after the Fargo trip?
  2. Of the 335+ trips the Howard Center counted since 2012, which other Western NY congressional offices participated, and how do their participation patterns compare?
  3. The trip filer Allen Garnes is identified by LegiStorm as Langworthy’s senior legislative aide (Legislative Assistant / Legislative Director). Is there a public record of which staff portfolio sugar-industry advocates engage with at the office?

Cross-References

Sources

Note: This entry adds a documented data point to a national investigation that has already been published. The pattern, the quotes, and the framing all originate in the Howard Center’s reporting. This site provides the local cross-reference: that Rep. Langworthy’s office is one of the offices that participated in the 2024 cycle of the program.

Last updated: May 4, 2026.