Rep. Brenda Lawrence

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2020 Report Card for Lawrence.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Lawrence 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 Lawrence has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2017 to Oct 12, 2021. See full analysis methodology.

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

Committee Membership

Brenda Lawrence sits on the following committees:

• House Committee on Appropriations
  Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, Financial Services and General Government, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies subcommittees
• House Committee on Oversight and Reform
  Government Operations subcommittees

Enacted Legislation

Lawrence was the primary sponsor of 3 bills that were enacted:

• H.R. 3976 (116th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 12711 East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, as the “Aretha Franklin Post Office Building”.
• H.R. 5028 (114th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 10721 E Jefferson Ave in Detroit, Michigan, as the “Mary E. McCoy Post Office Building”.
• H.R. 1900 (114th): National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of 2015

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Does 3 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 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Lawrence sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Education (18%) Environmental Protection (15%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (13%) Taxation (13%) Health (10%) Government Operations and Politics (10%) Families (10%) Armed Forces and National Security (10%)

Recent Bills

Some of Lawrence’s most recently sponsored bills include...

• H.Res. 518: USPS 50th Anniversary Resolution
• H.R. 2661: Environmental Health Workforce Act of 2021
• H.R. 2627: Pell to Grad Act
• H.R. 2521: DOULA for VA Act of 2021
• H.Res. 284: Affirming that all men and women are created equal.
• H.R. 2233: Aretha Franklin Congressional Gold Medal Act
• H.R. 2033: Timely Mental Health for Foster Youth Act

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 2015 to Oct 2021, Lawrence missed 99 of 3,804 roll call votes, which is 2.6%. This is on par with the median of 2.1% 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 and major life events.

Show the numbers...

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