Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s 2018 Report Card
Representative
from Virginia's 6th District
Republican
Served Jan 5, 1993 – Jan 3, 2019
These statistics cover Goodlatte’s record during the 115th Congress (Jan 3, 2017-Jan 3, 2019) and compare him to other representatives also serving at the end of the session. Last updated on Jan 20, 2019.
A higher or lower number below doesn’t necessarily make this legislator any better or worse, or more or less effective, than other Members of Congress. We present these statistics for you to understand the quantitative aspects of Goodlatte’s legislative career and make your own judgements based on what activities you think are important.
Keep in mind that there are many important aspects of being a legislator besides what can be measured, such as constituent services and performing oversight of the executive branch, which aren’t reflected here.
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Held the most committee positions compared to Virginia Delegation (tied with 1 other)Goodlatte held a leadership position on 1 committee and 0 subcommittees, as either a chair (majority party) or ranking member (minority party), at the end of the session. For comparison to other Members of Congress, we assigned a score giving five points for each full committee leadership position and one point for each subcommittee leadership position. View Goodlatte’s Profile » Compare to all Virginia Delegation (82nd percentile); Serving 10+ Years (77th percentile); House Republicans (89th percentile); All Representatives (89th percentile). |
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Cosponsored the 3rd fewest bills compared to Virginia DelegationGoodlatte cosponsored 186 bills and resolutions introduced by other Members of Congress. Cosponsorship shows a willingness to work with others to advance policy goals. View Cosponsored Bills » Compare to all Virginia Delegation (18th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (24th percentile); House Republicans (42nd percentile); All Representatives (25th percentile). |
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Supported government transparency the 3rd most often compared to Serving 10+ Years (tied with 3 others)GovTrack looked at whether Goodlatte supported any of 32 government transparency, accountability, and effectiveness bills in the House that we identified in this session. We gave Goodlatte 8 points, based on one point for cosponsoring and three points for sponsoring any of these bills. Goodlatte sponsored H.R. 732: Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act …; H.R. 522: Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act … Goodlatte cosponsored H.R. 24: Federal Reserve Transparency Act of …; H.R. 6755: Judiciary ROOM Act of 2018 Compare to all Virginia Delegation (91st percentile); Serving 10+ Years (97th percentile); House Republicans (97th percentile); All Representatives (97th percentile). |
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Got influential cosponsors the 4th most often compared to All Representatives (tied with 3 others)15 of Goodlatte’s bills and resolutions in the 115th Congress had a cosponsor who was a chair or ranking member of a committee that the bill was referred to. Getting support from committee leaders on relevant committees is a crucial step in moving legislation forward. Those bills were: H.R. 5: Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017; H.R. 45: Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017; H.R. 522: Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act …; H.R. 732: Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act …; H.R. 1695: Register of Copyrights Selection and …; H.R. 2605: Secret Service Reauthorization Act of …; H.R. 3989: USA Liberty Act of 2017; H.R. 4760: Securing America’s Future Act of …; H.R. 5447: Music Modernization Act; H.R. 5954: Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018; H.R. 6136: Border Security and Immigration Reform …; H.R. 6417: AG and Legal Workforce Act; H.Con.Res. 33: Designating the George C. Marshall …; H.J.Res. 1: Proposing a balanced budget amendment …; H.J.Res. 2: Proposing a balanced budget amendment … Compare to all Virginia Delegation (91st percentile); Serving 10+ Years (98th percentile); House Republicans (98th percentile); All Representatives (98th percentile). |
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Got their bills out of committee the 9th most often compared to All Representatives (tied with 1 other)Most bills and resolutions languish in committee without any action. Goodlatte introduced 19 bills in the 115th Congress that got past committee and to the floor for consideration. Those bills were: H.R. 5: Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017; H.R. 732: Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act …; H.R. 954: To remove the use restrictions …; H.R. 985: Fairness in Class Action Litigation …; H.R. 1695: Register of Copyrights Selection and …; H.R. 2406: Immigration and Customs Enforcement Authorization …; H.R. 2407: United States Citizenship and Immigration …; H.R. 2605: Secret Service Reauthorization Act of …; H.R. 3003: No Sanctuary for Criminals Act; H.R. 3004: Kate’s Law; H.R. 3989: USA Liberty Act of 2017; H.R. 4092: AG Act; H.R. 4760: Securing America’s Future Act of …; H.R. 5447: Music Modernization Act; H.R. 5954: Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018; H.R. 6136: Border Security and Immigration Reform …; H.R. 6730: Injunctive Authority Clarification Act of …; H.Con.Res. 33: Designating the George C. Marshall …; H.J.Res. 2: Proposing a balanced budget amendment … Compare to all Virginia Delegation (91st percentile); Serving 10+ Years (97th percentile); House Republicans (96th percentile); All Representatives (98th percentile). |
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Ranked the 12th top leader compared to All RepresentativesOur unique leadership analysis looks at who is cosponsoring whose bills. A higher score shows a greater ability to get cosponsors on bills. For more, see our methodology. Note that because on this page only legislative activity in the 115th Congress is considered, the leadership score here may differ from Goodlatte’s score elsewhere on GovTrack. Compare to all Virginia Delegation (91st percentile); Serving 10+ Years (95th percentile); House Republicans (95th percentile); All Representatives (97th percentile). |
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Got the 14th most cosponsors on their bills compared to House RepublicansGoodlatte’s bills and resolutions had 765 cosponsors in the 115th Congress. Securing cosponsors is an important part of getting support for a bill, although having more cosponsors does not always mean a bill will get a vote. View Bills » Compare to all Virginia Delegation (73rd percentile); Serving 10+ Years (87th percentile); House Republicans (94th percentile); All Representatives (92nd percentile). |
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Introduced the 29th most bills compared to House Republicans (tied with 5 others)Goodlatte introduced 31 bills and resolutions in the 115th Congress. View Bills » Compare to all Virginia Delegation (82nd percentile); Serving 10+ Years (78th percentile); House Republicans (86th percentile); All Representatives (84th percentile). |
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Wrote the 27th most laws compared to Serving 10+ Years (tied with 15 others)Goodlatte introduced 3 bills that became law, including via incorporation into other measures, in the 115th Congress. Keep in mind that it takes a law to repeal a law. Very few bills ever become law. View Enacted Bills » Those bills were: H.R. 954: To remove the use restrictions …; H.R. 5447: Music Modernization Act; H.R. 5954: Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018 Compare to all Virginia Delegation (55th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (78th percentile); House Republicans (72nd percentile); All Representatives (81st percentile). The legislator must be the primary sponsor of the bill or joint resolution that was enacted or the primary sponsor of a bill or joint resolution for which at least about one third of its text was incorporated into another bill or joint resolution that was enacted as law, as determined by an automated analysis. While a legislator may lay claim to authoring other bills that became law, these cases are difficult for us to track quantitatively. We also exclude bills where the sponsor’s original intent is not in the final bill. |
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Ranked 35th most politically right compared to Serving 10+ YearsOur unique ideology analysis assigns a score to Members of Congress according to their legislative behavior by how similar the pattern of bills and resolutions they cosponsor are to other Members of Congress. For more, see our methodology. Note that because on this page only legislative activity in the 115th Congress is considered, the ideology score here may differ from Goodlatte’s score elsewhere on GovTrack. Compare to all Virginia Delegation (64th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (81st percentile); House Republicans (44th percentile); All Representatives (69th percentile). |
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Joined bipartisan bills the 35th least often compared to Serving 10+ YearsOf the 186 bills that Goodlatte cosponsored, 13% were introduced by a legislator who was not a Republican. View Cosponsored Bills » Compare to all Virginia Delegation (18th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (18th percentile); House Republicans (51st percentile); All Representatives (29th percentile). Only Democratic and Republican Members of Congress who cosponsored more than 10 bills and resolutions are included in this statistic. |
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Got bipartisan cosponsors on the 79th most bills compared to All Representatives (tied with 10 others)In this era of partisanship, it is important to see Members of Congress working across the aisle. 14 of Goodlatte’s 31 bills and resolutions had a cosponsor from a different political party than the party Goodlatte caucused with in the 115th Congress. Compare to all Virginia Delegation (55th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (79th percentile); House Republicans (76th percentile); All Representatives (80th percentile). Cosponsors who caucused with neither the Democratic nor Republican party do not count toward this statistic. |
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Working with the SenateThe House and Senate often work on the same issue simultaneously by introducing Those bills were: H.R. 954: To remove the use restrictions …; H.R. 5954: Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018; H.J.Res. 1: Proposing a balanced budget amendment … Compare to all Virginia Delegation (36th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (47th percentile); House Republicans (58th percentile); All Representatives (54th percentile). Companion bills are those that are identified as “identical” by Congress’s Congressional Research Service. |
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Missed VotesGoodlatte missed 1.9% of votes (23 of 1,210 votes) in the 115th Congress. View Goodlatte’s Profile » Compare to all Virginia Delegation (45th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (29th percentile); All Representatives (36th percentile). The Speaker of the House, per current House rules, is not required to vote in “ordinary legislative proceedings” and is never recorded as missing a vote, and may not be included in the comparison with other representatives if not voting. The delegates from the five island territories and the District of Columbia are not eligible to vote in most roll call votes and so may not appear here if not elligible for any vote during the time period of these statistics. |
Additional Notes
Leadership/Ideology: The leadership and ideology scores are not displayed for Members of Congress who introduced fewer than 10 bills, or, for ideology, for Members of Congress that have a low leadership score, as there is usually not enough data in these cases to compute reliable leadership and ideology statistics.
Missing Bills: We exclude bills from some statistics where the sponsor’s original intent is not in the final bill because the bill’s text was replaced in whole with unrelated provisions (i.e. it became a vehicle for passage of unrelated provisions).
Ranking Members (RkMembs): The chair of a committee is always selected from the political party that holds the most seats in the chamber, called the “majority party”. The “ranking member” (sometimes “RkMembs”) is the title given to the senior-most member of the committee not in the majority party.
Freshmen/Sophomores: Freshmen and sophomores are Members of Congress whose first term (in the same chamber at the end of the 115th Congress) was the 115th Congress (freshmen) or 114th (sophomores). Members of Congress who took office within the last few months of a Congress are considered freshmen in the next Congress as well.
