Rep. Brad Wenstrup
Representative for Ohio’s 2nd District
pronounced brad // WEN-strup
![Photo of Rep. Brad Wenstrup [R-OH2]](/static/legislator-photos/412564-200px.jpeg)
Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his senior government advisors, and Republican legislators collaborated to have the 2020 presidential election decided by themselves rather than by voters. Their attempts to suppress entire state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and using a disinformation campaign of lies and conspiracy theories was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.
Wenstrup was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Wenstrup joined a case before the Supreme Court calling for all the votes for president in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states that were narrowly won by Democrats — to be discarded, in order to change the outcome of the election, based on lies and a preposterous legal argument which the Supreme Court rejected. (Following the rejection of several related cases before the Supreme Court, another legislator who joined the case called for violence.) The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors. President Trump was indicted in 2023 for soliciting the Vice President to subvert Congress’s certification of the election and his role in the fraudulent slates of electors and the insurrection at the Capitol.
Earmarks
Wenstrup proposed $27 million in earmarks for fiscal year 2024, including:
- $5 million to The Pickaway County Transportation Improvement District for “Pickaway County U.S. 23 & St. Rt. 762 Interchange Project”
- $3.2 million to Gallia County Agricultural Society for “Gallia County Fair Relocation Project”
- $3.2 million to City of Portsmouth for “Portsmouth, OH Safety and Streetscape Improvements Project”
View all requests and justifications on Wenstrup’s website »
View analysis and download spreadsheet from Demand Progress Education Fund »
These are earmark requests which may or may not survive the legislative process to becoming law. Most representatives from both parties requested earmarks for fiscal year 2024. Across representatives who requested earmarks, the median total amount requested for this fiscal year was $39 million.
Earmarks are federal expenditures, tax benefits, or tariff benefits requested by a legislator for a specific entity. Rather than being distributed through a formula or competitive process administered by the executive branch, earmarks may direct spending where it is most needed for the legislator's district. All earmark requests in the House of Representatives are published online for the public to review. We don’t have earmark requests for senators. The fiscal year begins on October 1 of the prior calendar year. Source: Appropriations.house.gov. Background: Earmark Disclosure Rules in the House
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2022 Report Card for Wenstrup.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Wenstrup 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 Wenstrup has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Sep 22, 2023. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
Brad Wenstrup sits on the following committees:
Enacted Legislation
Wenstrup was the primary sponsor of 11 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.R. 8799 (117th): Otto Warmbier Countering North Korean Censorship and Surveillance Act of 2021
- H.R. 2545 (117th): To amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify the role of doctors of podiatric medicine in the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.
- H.R. 960 (117th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 3493 Burnet Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio, as the John H. Leahr and Herbert M. Heilbrun …
- H.R. 6292 (117th): To direct the Department of Defense to report to Congress on the potential integration of advanced propulsion systems into F-35 aircraft, and for other purposes.
- H.R. 2951 (117th): To direct the Secretary of the Treasury to modify Treasury Regulations relating to insurance-dedicated exchange-traded funds.
- H.R. 1658 (116th): To amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify the grade and pay of podiatrists of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
- H.R. 1058 (115th): VA Provider Equity Act
Does 11 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
Wenstrup sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Health (27%) Armed Forces and National Security (23%) Taxation (23%) Social Welfare (10%) International Affairs (6%) Government Operations and Politics (4%) Emergency Management (4%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (4%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Wenstrup recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 5614: To extend duty-free treatment provided with respect to imports from Haiti under the …
- H.R. 4818: Treat and Reduce Obesity Act of 2023
- H.R. 4087: Foreign Adversary Gain-of-Function Research Prevention Act of 2023
- H.R. 3800: Chronic Disease Flexible Coverage Act
- H.R. 3738: To amend title 38, United States Code, to establish in the Department of …
- H.R. 3739: FAIR TARIFF Act of 2023
- H.R. 3667: Social Security Child Protection Act of 2023
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2013 to Sep 2023, Wenstrup missed 89 of 6,094 roll call votes, which is 1.5%. This is on par with the median of 1.7% 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.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- GPO Member Guide for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
