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Rep. Mark Kirk [R-IL10]
U.S. Representative, Illinois’s 10th District

Photo of Kirk
State:Illinois [map]
District:10th Congressional District [map]
Party:Republican
Birthday:Sep 15, 1959 / 50 years old

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

On the Floor
Latest Floor Video from MetaVid

Congressional Service

Mark Kirk has represented Illinois’s 10th congressional district since 2001.

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by Mark Kirk:

WhenRoleRepresenting
2001-2010
U.S. RepresentativeIllinois’s 10th
(was preceeded by John Porter)

Sponsorship Analysis

"Ideometer"Kirk is a moderate 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"
Kirk is somewhere between a leader and a follower. Kirk sponsors others’ bills and other Members of Congress cosponsor Kirk’s bills. For more, see congressional statistics.

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

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

Voting Record

Voting RecordMark Kirk missed 236 (4%) of 6346 votes since Jan 3, 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 Kirk in 2007-2008 was $40,650 from employees of Kirkland & Ellis. Mark Kirk’s net worth was between $148,008 and $844,999 in 2007, according to Kirk’s mandated financial disclosure statements. For more information, see the Center for Responsive Politics’ page for Kirk.

Committee Membership

Mark Kirk sits on the following committees:

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.