McCarthy was the representative for New York’s 4th congressional district and was a Democrat. She served from 1997 to 2014.
![Photo of Rep. Carolyn McCarthy [D-NY4, 1997-2014]](/static/legislator-photos/400257-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2014 Report Card for McCarthy.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
McCarthy is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2014 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 McCarthy sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2009 to Dec 11, 2014. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
McCarthy was the primary sponsor of 6 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 2079 (112th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 10 Main Street in East Rockaway, New York, as the “John J. Cook Post Office”.
- H.R. 5723 (111th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 100 Broadway in Lynbrook, New York, as the “Navy Corpsman Jeffrey L. Wiener Post Office …
- H.R. 586 (111th): Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009
- H.R. 1388 (111th): Serve America Act
- H.R. 2640 (110th): NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007
- H.R. 2845 (110th): Department of State Crisis Response Act of 2007
Does 6 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
McCarthy sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Education (35%) Crime and Law Enforcement (27%) Health (10%) International Affairs (8%) Transportation and Public Works (6%) Labor and Employment (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
McCarthy recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 5005 (113th): Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act of 2014
- H.R. 2759 (113th): Teachers at the Table Act
- H.R. 1955 (113th): Long Island Aviation History Act
- H.R. 1857 (113th): Student-to-School Nurse Ratio Improvement Act of 2013
- H.R. 1041 (113th): PRE-K Act
- H.R. 437 (113th): Assault Weapons Ban of 2013
- H.R. 138 (113th): Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 1997 to Dec 2014, McCarthy missed 1,184 of 12,173 roll call votes, which is 9.7%. This is much worse than the median of 2.5% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2014. 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
