Sen. Christopher Coons

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Coons is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the Senate 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 Coons has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2017 to Jan 20, 2022. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Christopher Coons sits on the following committees:

• Senate Select Committee on Ethics Chair
• Senate Committee on Appropriations
  • State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs subcommittee Chair

  Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies subcommittees
• Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
  • Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy subcommittee Chair

  Africa and Global Health Policy, East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy, Europe and Regional Security Cooperation subcommittees
• Senate Committee on the Judiciary
  • Privacy, Technology, and the Law subcommittee Chair

  Human Rights and the Law, Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety, Intellectual Property subcommittees
• Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship

Enacted Legislation

Coons was the primary sponsor of 13 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 1813: Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies for ALS Act
• S. 799: SCALE Act
• S. 3953 (116th): FLIGHT Act
• S. 3519 (116th): A bill to authorize the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to subsidize payments on loans guaranteed under the 7(a) and 504 loan programs or made using …
• S. 999 (116th): Sustainable Chemistry Research and Development Act of 2019
• S. 2354 (116th): Expanding Findings for Federal Opioid Research and Treatment Act
• S. 1427 (116th): Global Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing Act of 2019

View All »

Does 13 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

Coons sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (26%) Commerce (19%) Labor and Employment (12%) Education (10%) Science, Technology, Communications (10%) Taxation (8%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (8%) Health (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Coons recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 3531: A bill to require the Federal Government to produce a national climate adaptation …
• S. 3483: Justice for ALS Veterans Act of 2022
• S. 3351: Coastal Fellowships Act
• S.Res. 475: A resolution recognizing the 73rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights …
• S. 3317: Democracy in the 21st Century Act
• S. 3275: Sudan Democracy Act
• S.Res. 458: A resolution recognizing the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations …

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Nov 2010 to Jan 2022, Coons missed 81 of 3,553 roll call votes, which is 2.3%. This is on par with the median of 2.1% among the lifetime records of senators 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