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Rep. Virginia (Ginny) Brown-Waite [R-FL5]
U.S. Representative, Florida’s 5th District

Photo of Brown-Waite
State:Florida [map]
District:5th Congressional District [map]
Party:Republican
Birthday:Oct 5, 1943 / 66 years old

To contact Virginia Brown-Waite, visit her official website. (Read our tips for communicating with Congress.) See the Project Vote Smart page for Brown-Waite for more biographical and issue information.

On the Floor
Latest Floor Video from MetaVid

Congressional Service

Virginia Brown-Waite has represented Florida’s 5th congressional district since 2003.

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by Virginia Brown-Waite:

WhenRoleRepresenting
2003-2010
U.S. RepresentativeFlorida’s 5th
(was preceeded by Karen Thurman)

Sponsorship Analysis

"Ideometer"Brown-Waite is a rank-and-file 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"
Brown-Waite is a follower according to our statistical analysis of bills in this legislative session. Brown-Waite tends to cosponsors the bills of other Members of Congress who do not cosponsor Brown-Waite’s own bills. For more, see congressional statistics.

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

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

Voting Record

Voting RecordVirginia Brown-Waite missed 373 (7%) of 5206 votes since Jan 7, 2003. The graph to the left shows the number of missed votes over time. Click for a larger chart and a list of recent votes.

Committee Membership

Virginia Brown-Waite sits on the following committees:

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Virginia Brown-Waite has sponsored 73 bills since Jan 7, 2003 of which 60 haven't made it out of committee and 8 were successfully enacted. Brown-Waite has co-sponsored 981 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by Brown-Waite 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 Brown-Waite’s most recently sponsored bills include...

H.Res. 831: Supporting the goals and ideals of National Adoption Day and National Adoption Month by promoting national awareness of adoption and the children in foster care awaiting families, celebrating children and families involved in adoption, recognizing current programs and efforts designed to promote adoption, and encouraging people in the United States to seek improved safety, permanency, and well-being for all children.
H.R. 3691: Seniors and Veterans Economic Stimulus Act of 2009
H.R. 1516: To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 37926 Church Street in Dade City, Florida, as the "Sergeant Marcus Mathes Post Office".
H.Res. 207: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that all employers give veterans a holiday on Veteran's Day in honor of their service to our country.
H.R. 1268: To amend the Truth in Lending Act to prohibit issuance of residential mortgages to any individual who lacks a Social Security account number.

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

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.