WASHINGTON - It was a busy weekend in November for the flight crew of BellSouth's corporate jet. Over three days, they crisscrossed the Southeast, ferrying six U.S. senators, two of their wives, a trio of political consultants and two of the company's Washington lobbyists to Republican and Democratic fundraising events.
   To charter a comparable Cessna Citation for that three-day itinerary would have cost $40,800, not including food and drinks. The two parties' campaign committees reimbursed BellSouth $8,364.94 for the flights, in line with campaign-finance rules that call for the equivalent of first-class commercial airfare for each traveler.
   For members of Congress - its top leaders, in particular - the service is an accepted convenience of immense value in their whirlwind schedules, worth far more than the reimbursements the rules require. They can skip security lines, ignore airline schedules and stretch out in roomy leather seats. For corporations that provide the service, it's a chance to do favors for the powerful and gain influence unavailable to those without air fleets.
   Public records and internal company documents obtained by USA TODAY show that over the past four years, BellSouth has flown federal government officials on such political trips about 100 times. The internal records offer rare detail about who goes on the trips and why - information that lawmakers and companies aren't now required to reveal.
   This perk for lawmakers is under scrutiny this week as the Senate seeks to rewrite the rules of the influence game in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., are pushing to curb the cut-rate travel service.
   BellSouth's internal documents, covering 2002 through 2005, were provided by Vicki Taylor, who has worked for 15 years as a secretary in BellSouth's Washington lobbying office. Taylor, 53, said she sought out reporters because she was concerned about company practices she believed violated internal expense-account rules. She is now on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation.
   BellSouth spokesman Bill McCloskey acknowledged the documents were authentic.
   Top travelers with the regional telephone company include House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Democratic Sens. Tom Daschle of South Dakota and John Breaux of Louisiana, both now retired.
   FedEx, U.S. Tobacco, Union Pacific, the Texas plaintiff's law firm of Baron & Budd, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, R.J. Reynolds and generic-drug maker Barr Laboratories are among those companies that most frequently whisk members of Congress around the country upon request, according to figures released Monday by PoliticalMoneyLine, which compiles data on money and politics.
   In the past five years, federal politicians and political parties reimbursed 286 corporations $3.7 million for 2,154 trips, according to the PoliticalMoneyLine figures.
   ''You can sit down and have a cocktail and talk casually about a matter, rather than rushing in between meetings on Capitol Hill,'' says Wright Andrews, a veteran Washington lobbyist. ''You are a heavy hitter if you've got a jet.''
   BellSouth's McCloskey said providing transportation to federal officials ''gives us an opportunity to form relationships, to have a long stretch of time to explain issues that are technical and complicated. If it wasn't useful, we wouldn't do it.''
   On Friday, Nov. 11, BellSouth's Cessna 560 XL, tail number N404SB, left its Atlanta base and flew to Washington's Dulles airport to pick up Republican Sens. Bob Bennett of Utah, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Kit Bond of Missouri. Two of the senators' wives and Ward White, a BellSouth lobbyist, were along for the trip, according to a company flight manifest.
   The group flew to St. Simons Island, Ga., for a weekend retreat at the sumptuous Sea Island resort with members of the party's Senate Council, a club for corporate donors whose political action committees have given at least $5,000.
   While the senators joined contributors and their lobbyists for a weekend of briefings, golf, tennis, skeet and trap shooting, and a guided nature walk, the corporate jet headed back to Washington on Nov. 12 to pick up more senators.
   This time, according to the company documents, it was Democrats: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, headed for a party fundraising event near Orlando. They were accompanied by BellSouth lobbyist Broderick Johnson. Lawmakers asked about the travel defended their use of corporate planes as a necessity in the fast-paced world of politics. But advocates of an ethics overhaul, including McCain and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., have called for requiring lawmakers to reimburse companies for the full cost of a charter flight when they hop aboard their jets. That would make the practice so costly it would be tantamount to banning it, says Fred Wertheimer, president of the ethics watchdog group Democracy 21.
   McCain and Lieberman plan to offer an amendment during Senate debate that would require politicians to reimburse the full charter rate and disclose details of corporate plane trips.
   A poll in January found strong public support for ending cut-rate travel by lawmakers on corporate planes. The Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll found 72 percent of Americans support banning the practice, and 21 percent oppose a ban.
   The practice was spotlighted in the case of Randy ''Duke'' Cunningham, a California Republican who resigned his House seat Nov. 28 after pleading guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors. Brent Wilkes, founder of the defense company ADCS, flew Cunningham to an Idaho hunting trip on Group W Transportation, his private Lear jet, according to campaign-finance records.
   ''It's a big perk for members of Congress, which I can assure you is not available to the general public,'' Wertheimer says. ''There is no legitimate rationale for it.''