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Rep. Henry Waxman [D-CA30]
U.S. Representative, California’s 30th District

Photo of Waxman
State:California [map]
District:30th Congressional District [map]
Party:Democrat
Birthday:Sep 12, 1939 / 70 years old

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

On the Floor
Latest Floor Video from MetaVid

Congressional Service

Henry Waxman has represented California’s 30th congressional district since 2003.

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by Henry Waxman:

WhenRoleRepresenting
2003-2010
U.S. RepresentativeCalifornia’s 30th
(was preceeded by Rep. Xavier Becerra [D-CA31])
1993-2002
U.S. RepresentativeCalifornia’s 29th
(was preceeded by Rep. Maxine Waters [D-CA35])
1975-1992
U.S. RepresentativeCalifornia’s 24th
(was preceeded by John Rousselot)

Sponsorship Analysis

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

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

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

Voting Record

Voting RecordHenry Waxman missed 901 (7%) 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 Waxman in 2007-2008 was $12,000 from employees of Patton Boggs LLP. Henry Waxman’s net worth was between $786,027 and $2,040,000 in 2007, according to Waxman’s mandated financial disclosure statements. For more information, see the Center for Responsive Politics’ page for Waxman.

Committee Membership

Henry Waxman sits on the following committees:

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Henry Waxman has sponsored 147 bills since Jan 16, 1991 of which 108 haven't made it out of committee and 6 were successfully enacted. Waxman has co-sponsored 3014 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by Waxman 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 Waxman’s most recently sponsored bills include...

H.R. 3258: Drinking Water System Security Act of 2009
H.R. 1427: Promoting Innovation and Access to Life-Saving Medicine Act
H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
H.R. 2998: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
H.R. 1256: Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

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

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.