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Sen. John Ensign [R-NV]
U.S. Senator, Nevada

Photo of Ensign
State:Nevada [map]
Party:Republican
Birthday:Mar 25, 1958 / 51 years old

To contact John Ensign, visit his official website. (Read our tips for communicating with Congress.) See the Project Vote Smart page for Ensign for more biographical and issue information.

Ensign’s latest tweet:for the President to bring us down any further..(Feb 2, 2010)
Official YouTube Feed
“Employee "No" Choice Act” - Mar 12, 2009 12:18 AM. Watch Video.
On the Floor
Latest Floor Video from MetaVid

Congressional Service

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by John Ensign:

WhenRoleRepresenting
2001-2012U.S. SenatorNevada(Most Recent Term Began in 2007)
(was preceeded by Richard Bryan)
1995-1998
U.S. RepresentativeNevada’s 1st
(was preceeded by James Bilbray)

Sponsorship Analysis

"Ideometer"Ensign is a far-right Republican according to GovTrack's own analysis of bill sponsorship.

These labels come from the Political Spectrum statistical analysis that we have carried out. The statistical analysis puts members of Congress on a scale based on patterns of bill sponsorship, and is blind to party affiliation and the content of bills. From there, we have somewhat arbitrarily divided the Members of Congress into far-left/right, rank-and-file, and moderate (i.e. centrist). For each party, the most extreme 23% of Members of Congress are labeled far-left or -right. The most centrist 30% (i.e. those closest to the other party) are labeled moderate. The remaining 47% are labeled as rank-and-file.

"Leader-Follower Score"
Ensign is a leader according to our statistical analysis of bills in this legislative session. Other Members of Congress tend to cosponsor Ensign’s bills. For more, see congressional statistics.

To compute the leader-follower score for Ensign, we make a table that lists all other Members of Congress. Each row has the number bills sponsored by Ensign and cosponsored by the other Member of Congress divided by the number of bills sponsored by the other Member of Congress and cosponsored by Ensign.

This is a measure of who is following who. The higher the number, the more times others are cosponsoring Ensign's bills without Ensign returning the favor. We then take the mean of (the logorithms of) these ratios. Thanks to Joe Barillari for the idea.

Voting Record

Voting RecordJohn Ensign missed 91 (3%) of 3027 votes since Jan 23, 2001. The graph to the left shows the number of missed votes over time. Click for a larger chart and a list of recent votes.

Money & Influence

The top campaign contribution to Ensign in 2007-2008 was $135,750 from employees of MGM Mirage. John Ensign’s net worth was between $1,901,203 and $7,450,195 in 2007, according to Ensign’s mandated financial disclosure statements. For more information, see the Center for Responsive Politics’ page for Ensign.

Committee Membership

John Ensign sits on the following committees:

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

John Ensign has sponsored 139 bills since Jan 22, 2001 of which 113 haven't made it out of committee and 7 were successfully enacted. Ensign has co-sponsored 578 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by Ensign and companion bills identified by CRS that were themselves enacted, but not if they were incorporated into other bills, as that information is not readily available.)

Some of Ensign’s most recently sponsored bills include...

S. 1727: Circuit Court of Appeals Restructuring and Modernization Act of 2009
S. 1784: A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to ensure that State approving agencies provide timely responses to applications for approval of courses of education and provide justifications for disapproval of courses, to provide for the review of the disapproval of courses by State approving agencies, and for other purposes.
S. 1785: A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to require State approving agencies to approve courses of education that have been accredited and approved by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association, and for other purposes.
S. 2806: BE WELL Act
S. 995: Renewable Energy Permitting Act of 2009

View All... (including bills from previous years)

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.