skip to main content

 
Rep. Bennie Thompson

Representative for Mississippi’s 2nd District

pronounced BEH-nee // TOMP-sun


Thompson is the representative for Mississippi’s 2nd congressional district (view map) and is a Democrat. He has served since Apr 13, 1993. Thompson is next up for reelection in 2024 and serves until Jan 3, 2025. He is 75 years old.

Photo of Rep. Bennie Thompson [D-MS2]

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2022 Report Card for Thompson.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Thompson is shown as a purple triangle in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the House of Representatives positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Thompson has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Mar 22, 2023. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Bennie Thompson sits on the following committees:

Enacted Legislation

Thompson was the primary sponsor of 15 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

View All »

Does 15 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Thompson sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (30%) Emergency Management (24%) Transportation and Public Works (21%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (6%) Science, Technology, Communications (6%) Immigration (6%) Education (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Thompson recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Thompson voted Yea

Thompson voted Nay

Passed 220/210 on Mar 3, 2021.

Thompson voted Nay

Passed 403/3 on Apr 18, 2018.

H.R. 2905 will require the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury to report to Congress on efforts to combat identity theft, including by …

Thompson voted Nay

Thompson voted Yea

Passed 338/88 on May 13, 2015.

The USA Freedom Act (H.R. 2048, Pub.L. 114–23) is a U.S. law enacted on June 2, 2015 that restored in modified form several provisions of …

Thompson voted No

Thompson voted Aye

Thompson voted Aye

Passed 304/117 on Jun 23, 2011.

The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and was signed into law by President Barack …

Missed Votes

From Apr 1993 to Mar 2023, Thompson missed 745 of 19,139 roll call votes, which is 3.9%. This is much worse than the median of 1.5% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: