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Rep. Charles Melancon [D-LA3]
U.S. Representative, Louisiana’s 3rd District

Photo of Melancon
State:Louisiana [map]
District:3rd Congressional District [map]
Party:Democrat
Birthday:Oct 3, 1947 / 62 years old

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

On the Floor
Latest Floor Video from MetaVid

Congressional Service

Charles Melancon has represented Louisiana’s 3rd congressional district since 2005.

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by Charles Melancon:

WhenRoleRepresenting
2005-2010
U.S. RepresentativeLouisiana’s 3rd
(was preceeded by William Tauzin)

Sponsorship Analysis

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

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

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

Voting Record

Voting RecordCharles Melancon missed 157 (4%) of 3985 votes since Jan 4, 2005. 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 Melancon in 2007-2008 was $18,400 from employees of Edison Chouest Offshore. Charles Melancon’s net worth was between $771,090 and $2,891,000 in 2007, according to Melancon’s mandated financial disclosure statements. For more information, see the Center for Responsive Politics’ page for Melancon.

Committee Membership

Charles Melancon sits on the following committees:

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Charles Melancon has sponsored 28 bills since Jan 4, 2005 of which 27 haven't made it out of committee and 1 were successfully enacted. Melancon has co-sponsored 422 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by Melancon 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 Melancon’s most recently sponsored bills include...

H.R. 3609: Wetlands Conservation Investment Act of 2009
H.R. 3929: To provide an extension of the low-income housing credit placed-in-service date requirement for certain disaster areas.
H.R. 4094: Drywall Victims Insurance Protection Act of 2009
H.R. 2441: First Responders Support Act of 2009
H.Res. 429: Congratulating Jockey Calvin Borel for his victory at the 135th Kentucky Derby.

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

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.