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Rep. Betty McCollum [D-MN4]
U.S. Representative, Minnesota’s 4th District

Photo of McCollum
State:Minnesota [map]
District:4th Congressional District [map]
Party:Democrat
Birthday:Jul 12, 1954 / 55 years old

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

Official YouTube Feed
“McCollum on Importance of VOA Radio” - Oct 12, 2007 5:55 PM. Watch Video.
On the Floor
Latest Floor Video from MetaVid

Congressional Service

Betty McCollum has represented Minnesota’s 4th congressional district since 2001.

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by Betty McCollum:

WhenRoleRepresenting
2001-2010
U.S. RepresentativeMinnesota’s 4th
(was preceeded by Bruce Vento)

Sponsorship Analysis

"Ideometer"McCollum is a far-left Democrat 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"
McCollum is somewhere between a leader and a follower. McCollum sponsors others’ bills and other Members of Congress cosponsor McCollum’s bills. For more, see congressional statistics.

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

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

Voting Record

Voting RecordBetty McCollum missed 133 (2%) of 6202 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 McCollum in 2007-2008 was $20,750 from employees of Robins, Kaplan et al. Betty McCollum’s net worth was between $10,011 and $190,000 in 2007, according to McCollum’s mandated financial disclosure statements. For more information, see the Center for Responsive Politics’ page for McCollum.

Committee Membership

Betty McCollum sits on the following committees:

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Betty McCollum has sponsored 40 bills since Jan 3, 2001 of which 38 haven't made it out of committee and 1 were successfully enacted. McCollum has co-sponsored 1868 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by McCollum 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 McCollum’s most recently sponsored bills include...

H.R. 3679: ACORN Act
H.Res. 771: Supporting the goals and ideals of a National Mesothelioma Awareness Day.
H.R. 3701: More Books for Africa Act of 2009
H.R. 1410: Newborn, Child, and Mother Survival Act of 2009
H.Res. 499: Congratulating the University of St. Thomas Tommies baseball team for winning the 2009 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III Men's Baseball National Championship.

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

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.