Fredreka Schouten and Christopher Schnaars

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — House members and candidates have spent at least $14.5 million of their donors' campaign contributions on food since Jan. 1, 2011, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The expenses range from thousands of dollars to underwrite big fundraising lunches in their home districts to meal tabs at country clubs, glitzy New York hotels and Washington steakhouses. Politicians and their aides also spent donors' money at far less glamorous destinations, such as Dunkin' Donuts and Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

This year, ex-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's restaurant bills garnered attention when campaign records showed that the Republican's campaign apparatus had spent more on steakhouses than his opponent, David Brat, had spent on his entire campaign to successfully trounce Cantor in Virginia's primary.

There's no doubt that political campaigns run on food – to raise money, feed campaign volunteers and reward supporters and donors. Lawmakers are barred from using campaign money for personal expenses, but they have wide discretion on exactly how they spend the money they collect for their campaigns.

In some cases, the line between personal and professional appears blurred.

One of the bigger spenders: the campaign of late Rep. C. W. Bill Young, R-Fla., who died last October after 43 years in Congress.

He racked up more than $240,000 in meal and food expenses, including dozens of bills from restaurants near his home in Woodbridge, Va. Almost always, the meals were described in federal records as feeding "constituents/visitors" although many of the eating establishments were more than 20 miles away from the U.S. Capitol and more than 700 miles away from his central Florida congressional district.

The suburban Virginia restaurants included the Carlyle Grand Café, a bistro where his campaign racked up more than $4,000 in expenses over nearly two dozen visits; chain restaurants such as Red Lobster and the Olive Garden; and El Charro, an informal Mexican restaurant about four miles from his home. A 1999 profile in his hometown paper described the restaurant as a Young favorite for family meals.

Late last year, when Young was hospitalized at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., his campaign underwrote more than $1,800 in meals at restaurants near the hospital and more than $9,700 for lodging at a nearby Marriott, federal records show. Young died at Walter Reed on Oct. 18.

Neither Young's widow nor key aides responded to interview requests from USA TODAY.

"It's awfully tempting for someone in a position like that to assume without thinking, 'I've got a lot of expenses. I've got to use all the resources available to me to make my life what I think it should be,' " said Bob Biersack, a former Federal Election Commission official who now works with the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

"Separating the routine aspects of life and the routine aspects of campaigning can become harder over the years," he said.

The USA TODAY analysis looked at instances in which House lawmakers and candidates used terms such as "food," "meals" and "dinner" to describe their expenses. Lawmakers' meal expenses are likely much higher because the tally did not count catering expenses or instances in which campaigns bundled food expenses with other costs, such as room-rental fees.

In addition, the analysis only covered spending that occurred in the main accounts of each candidate – not the array of other campaign vehicles that politicians often control, such as leadership PACs.

Republicans had the edge among the meal expenses examined, spending $9.2 million compared with $5.3 million spent by Democrats.

Other six-figure spenders during that period include Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who oversees efforts to elect Republicans to the House, and Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., who each spent about $300,000, the tally shows.

"We wrap a lot of events around meals, so it's not surprising that we would have food and beverage expenses," Walden spokesman Andrew Malcolm said. "The key is we work hard to keep our overhead low, like any small business would do, while aggressively developing new supporters, thanking volunteers and raising the necessary funds to run effective campaigns."

Malcolm noted that the food and beverage expenses represented less than 8% of the campaign's operating costs during the period examined.

Not surprisingly, the most popular food destination for politicians was the place where they work and cram in fundraising events between votes at the U.S. Capitol. Food expenses in Washington during the period examined accounted for nearly $5.9 million.

Lawmakers and candidates racked up their biggest Washington bills at The Capitol Hill Club and the National Democratic Club, private partisan enclaves just blocks from the U.S. Capitol that are popular fundraising spots. They also spent contributors' dollars at pricey seafood and steak restaurants, such as Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

Even Brat, the college professor who vanquished Cantor on a shoestring budget, appears to have developed a taste for steak. His most recent filing shows his campaign spent $731 at Morton's The Steakhouse in Richmond nearly two weeks after toppling Cantor.