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Rep. Solomon Ortiz [D-TX27]
U.S. Representative, Texas’s 27th District

Photo of Ortiz
State:Texas [map]
District:27th Congressional District [map]
Party:Democrat
Birthday:Jun 3, 1938 / 71 years old

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

On the Floor
Latest Floor Video from MetaVid

Congressional Service

Solomon Ortiz has represented Texas’s 27th congressional district since 1983.

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by Solomon Ortiz:

WhenRoleRepresenting
1983-2010
U.S. RepresentativeTexas’s 27th

Sponsorship Analysis

"Ideometer"Ortiz is a moderate 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"
Ortiz is a leader according to our statistical analysis of bills in this legislative session. Other Members of Congress tend to cosponsor Ortiz’s bills. For more, see congressional statistics.

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

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

Voting Record

Voting RecordSolomon Ortiz missed 775 (6%) of 12533 votes since Jan 23, 1990. 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 Ortiz in 2007-2008 was $18,900 from employees of Collazo Enterprises. Solomon Ortiz’s net worth was between $876,013 and $1,915,000 in 2007, according to Ortiz’s mandated financial disclosure statements. For more information, see the Center for Responsive Politics’ page for Ortiz.

Committee Membership

Solomon Ortiz sits on the following committees:

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Solomon Ortiz has sponsored 52 bills since May 1, 1991 of which 36 haven't made it out of committee and 6 were successfully enacted. Ortiz has co-sponsored 1307 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by Ortiz 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 Ortiz’s most recently sponsored bills include...

H.R. 3537: Junior Duck Stamp Conservation and Design Program Reauthorization Act of 2009
H.R. 2812: Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative Improvement Act of 2009
H.R. 279: Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park Boundary Expansion and Redesignation Act of 2009
H.R. 775: Military Surviving Spouses Equity Act
H.R. 894: Ensuring Safe Facilities and Equipment for American Troops Overseas Act

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

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.