Rep. David Cicilline’s 2019 Report Card
Representative
from Rhode Island's 1st District
Democrat
Serving Jan 5, 2011 – Jan 3, 2025
These year-end statistics cover Cicilline’s record during the 2019 legislative year (Jan 3, 2019-Dec 31, 2019) and compare him to other representatives serving at the end of that period. Last updated on Jan 18, 2020.
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 Cicilline’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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Got influential cosponsors the 2nd most often compared to All Representatives20 of Cicilline’s bills and resolutions in 2019 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.Res. 387: Condemning continued violence against civilians …; H.R. 5: Equality Act; H.R. 565: AMIGOS Act; H.R. 645: Automatic Voter Registration Act; H.R. 965: CREATES Act of 2019; H.R. 1004: Prohibiting Unauthorized Military Action in …; H.R. 1159: IMAGINE Act; H.R. 1169: Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act …; H.R. 1296: Assault Weapons Ban of 2019; H.R. 2054: Journalism Competition and Preservation Act …; H.R. 2630: Cash Always Should be Honored …; H.R. 2708: Disarm Hate Act; H.R. 2750: Justice for Servicemembers Act; H.R. 2977: DISCLOSE Act of 2019; H.R. 3252: Global Respect Act; H.R. 3553: Untraceable Firearms Act of 2019; H.R. 3606: High Speed Gunfire Prevention Act; H.R. 4872: Fire Sale Loophole Closing Act; H.R. 5133: Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Through …; H.J.Res. 61: Providing for congressional disapproval of … Compare to all House Democrats (99th percentile); All Representatives (100th percentile). |
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Got the 3rd most cosponsors on their bills compared to All RepresentativesCicilline’s bills and resolutions had 1,489 cosponsors in 2019. 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 House Democrats (99th percentile); All Representatives (99th percentile). |
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Wrote the 3rd most laws compared to All Representatives (tied with 3 others)Cicilline introduced 4 bills that became law, including via incorporation into other measures, in 2019. 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. 831: Reviving America’s Scenic Byways Act …; H.R. 965: CREATES Act of 2019; H.R. 2451: To designate the facility of …; H.R. 4558: End the Cyprus Arms Embargo … Compare to all House Democrats (98th percentile); All Representatives (99th 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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Got bicameral support on the 4th most bills compared to All Representatives (tied with 1 other)The House and Senate often work on the same issue simultaneously by introducing Those bills were: H.R. 287: New England Coastal Protection Act; H.R. 565: AMIGOS Act; H.R. 965: CREATES Act of 2019; H.R. 1159: IMAGINE Act; H.R. 1169: Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act …; H.R. 2582: Opioid QuOTA Act; H.R. 2708: Disarm Hate Act; H.R. 2750: Justice for Servicemembers Act; H.R. 2977: DISCLOSE Act of 2019; H.R. 3229: Children Don’t Belong on Tobacco …; H.R. 3263: Protecting NATO Skies Act of …; H.R. 4715: Judicial Travel Accountability Act; H.R. 5061: To designate the facility of … Compare to all House Democrats (98th percentile); All Representatives (99th percentile). Companion bills are those that are identified as “identical” by Congress’s Congressional Research Service. |
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Introduced the 5th most bills compared to All RepresentativesCicilline introduced 46 bills and resolutions in 2019. View Bills » Compare to all House Democrats (98th percentile); All Representatives (99th percentile). |
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Ranked the 6th 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 2019 is considered, the leadership score here may differ from Cicilline’s score elsewhere on GovTrack. Compare to all House Democrats (97th percentile); All Representatives (99th percentile). |
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Got their bills out of committee the 6th most often compared to All Representatives (tied with 3 others)Most bills and resolutions languish in committee without any action. Cicilline introduced 11 bills in 2019 that got past committee and to the floor for consideration. Those bills were: H.Res. 387: Condemning continued violence against civilians …; H.R. 5: Equality Act; H.R. 565: AMIGOS Act; H.R. 831: Reviving America’s Scenic Byways Act …; H.R. 965: CREATES Act of 2019; H.R. 1004: Prohibiting Unauthorized Military Action in …; H.R. 2451: To designate the facility of …; H.R. 2708: Disarm Hate Act; H.R. 3252: Global Respect Act; H.R. 4558: End the Cyprus Arms Embargo …; H.R. 5133: Affordable Prescriptions for Patients Through … Compare to all House Democrats (97th percentile); All Representatives (98th percentile). |
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Got bipartisan cosponsors on the 15th most bills compared to All Representatives (tied with 6 others)In this era of partisanship, it is important to see Members of Congress working across the aisle. 18 of Cicilline’s 46 bills and resolutions had a cosponsor from a different political party than the party Cicilline caucused with in 2019. Compare to all House Democrats (93rd percentile); All Representatives (95th percentile). Cosponsors who caucused with neither the Democratic nor Republican party do not count toward this statistic. |
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Cosponsored the 30th most bills compared to All RepresentativesCicilline cosponsored 503 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 House Democrats (88th percentile); All Representatives (93rd percentile). |
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Ranked 67th most politically left compared to All RepresentativesOur 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 2019 is considered, the ideology score here may differ from Cicilline’s score elsewhere on GovTrack. Compare to all House Democrats (28th percentile); All Representatives (15th percentile). |
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Joined bipartisan bills the 104th least often compared to All RepresentativesOf the 503 bills that Cicilline cosponsored, 8% were introduced by a legislator who was not a Democrat. View Cosponsored Bills » Compare to all House Democrats (44th percentile); All Representatives (24th 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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Committee PositionsCicilline held a leadership position on 0 committees and 1 subcommittee, as either a chair (majority party) or ranking member (minority party), at the end of the session. View Cicilline’s Profile » Compare to all House Democrats (40th percentile); All Representatives (42nd percentile). |
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Missed VotesCicilline missed 0.7% of votes (5 of 701 votes) in 2019. View Cicilline’s Profile » Compare to all All Representatives (28th 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 2019) was the 116th Congress (freshmen) or 115th (sophomores). Members of Congress who took office within the last few months of a Congress are considered freshmen in the next Congress as well.
