Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. [R-WI5]
U.S. Representative, Wisconsin’s 5^th District

Track James Sensenbrenner

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Outside Links

The following external websites may be of interest:

James Sensenbrenner’s Official Website

Biography from the official Congressional Biographical Directory

Campaign Contributions tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics

State:	Wisconsin [map]
District:	5^th Congressional District [map]
Party:	Republican
Birthday:	Jun 14, 1943 / 66 years old

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

On the Floor

Watch House proceeding 12-06-06 6:09:27 to 6:13:54 at MetaVid. More Videos | Congressional Record

Congressional Service

James Sensenbrenner has represented Wisconsin’s 5^th congressional district since 2003.

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by James Sensenbrenner:

When	Role	Representing
2003-2010	U.S. Representative	Wisconsin’s 5^th	(was preceeded by Thomas Barrett)
1989-2002	U.S. Representative	Wisconsin’s 9^th
1987-1988	U.S. Representative	Wisconsin’s 5^th	(was preceeded by Jim Moody)
1979-1986	U.S. Representative	Wisconsin	(District Number Unknown)

Sponsorship Analysis

Sensenbrenner 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.

Sensenbrenner is a follower according to our statistical analysis of bills in this legislative session. Sensenbrenner tends to cosponsors the bills of other Members of Congress who do not cosponsor Sensenbrenner’s own bills. For more, see congressional statistics.

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

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

Voting Record

James Sensenbrenner missed 116 (1%) of 12677 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 Sensenbrenner in 2007-2008 was $13,800 from employees of Intellectual Ventures LLC. James Sensenbrenner’s net worth was between $19,471,684 and $28,460,630 in 2007, according to Sensenbrenner’s mandated financial disclosure statements. For more information, see the Center for Responsive Politics’ page for Sensenbrenner.

Committee Membership

James Sensenbrenner sits on the following committees:

Ranking Member, House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming

Member, House Committee on the Judiciary

Member, House Committee on Science and Technology

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

James Sensenbrenner has sponsored 202 bills since Jan 3, 1989 of which 116 haven't made it out of committee and 31 were successfully enacted. Sensenbrenner has co-sponsored 1568 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by Sensenbrenner 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 Sensenbrenner’s most recently sponsored bills include...

	H.R. 445: Heavy Duty Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 2009
	H.Res. 781: Supporting the goals and ideals of Down Syndrome Awareness Month.
	H.R. 2637: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the age at which distributions from qualified retirement plans are required to begin and to extend the waiver of required minimum distribution rules for certain retirement plans and accounts through 2010.
	H.Res. 446: Of inquiry requesting the President and directing the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to provide certain documents to the House of Representatives relating to the Environmental Protection Agency's April proposed finding that greenhouse gas emissions are a danger to public health and welfare.
	H.Res. 431: Impeaching Samuel B. Kent, judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

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

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.

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