Rep. Elise Stefanik
House Republican Conference Chair and Representative for New York’s 21st District
pronounced uh-LEESS // stuh-FAH-nik
Stefanik is the representative for New York’s 21st congressional district (view map) and is a Republican. She has served since Jan 6, 2015. Stefanik is next up for reelection in 2024 and serves until Jan 3, 2025. She is 39 years old.
She is also House Republican Conference Chair, a party leadership role. Party leaders focus more on setting their party’s legislative priorties than on introducing legislation.
![Photo of Rep. Elise Stefanik [R-NY21]](/static/legislator-photos/412648-200px.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.
Stefanik was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Stefanik 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.) On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, Stefanik voted to skip Arizona and/or Pennsylvania in the counting of presidential electors, states which returned certified results for Trump’s opponent. These legislators have generally changed their story after their vote, claiming it was merely a protest and not intended to change the outcome of the election as they clearly sought prior to the vote. 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
Stefanik proposed $54 million in earmarks for fiscal year 2024, including:
- $10 million to Rensselaer County for “Rensselaer County, NY, Sewer Service and Infrastructure Expansion”
- $10 million to Fulton County Government for “Fulton County, NY, Consolidated Regional Sewer System Project”
- $8 million to Town of Lowville for “Town of Lowville, NY, Water District Expansion”
View all requests and justifications on Stefanik’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 Stefanik.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Stefanik 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 Stefanik has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Sep 30, 2023. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
Elise Stefanik sits on the following committees:
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House Committee on Armed Services
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House Committee on Education and the Workforce
Higher Education and Workforce Development, Workforce Protections subcommittees
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House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Central Intelligence Agency subcommittees
- House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
Enacted Legislation
Stefanik was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 2423 (116th): Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act
- H.R. 6930 (115th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 10 Miller Street in Plattsburgh, New York, as the “Ross Bouyea Post Office Building”.
Does 2 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
Stefanik sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Labor and Employment (24%) Education (19%) Armed Forces and National Security (17%) Immigration (11%) Science, Technology, Communications (8%) Government Operations and Politics (7%) Crime and Law Enforcement (7%) Agriculture and Food (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Stefanik recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.Res. 705: Electing the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives.
- H.R. 5513: To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and the National Labor …
- H.R. 5053: Wage Equity Act of 2023
- H.R. 4944: Military Families and Surviving Spouses Benefits Enhancement Act
- H.R. 4660: HALT Our Adversaries Act
- H.R. 4562: Ernest Peltz Accrued Veterans Benefits Act
- H.R. 4448: Canadian Snowbird Visa Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
As House Republican Conference Chair, Stefanik may be focused on her responsibilities other than introducing legislation, such as setting the chamber’s agenda, uniting her party, and brokering deals.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2015 to Oct 2023, Stefanik missed 21 of 5,002 roll call votes, which is 0.4%. This is better than 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
