Rep. Joaquin Castro

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2020 Report Card for Castro.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Castro 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 Castro has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2017 to Nov 26, 2021. See full analysis methodology.

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

Committee Membership

Joaquin Castro sits on the following committees:

• House Committee on Foreign Affairs
  • International Development, International Organizations, and Global Corporate Social Impact subcommittee Chair

  Western Hemisphere, Civilian Security, Migration, and International Economic Policy subcommittees
• House Committee on Education and Labor
  Higher Education and Workforce Investment subcommittees
• House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
  Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation, Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research subcommittees

Enacted Legislation

Castro was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:

• H.R. 4864 (116th): Global Child Thrive Act of 2020
• H.R. 6315 (116th): COVID–19 National Service Response Act

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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 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Castro sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (41%) Immigration (25%) Education (12%) Government Operations and Politics (7%) Armed Forces and National Security (6%)

Recent Bills

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

• H.R. 5749: Gas Consumer Emergency Market Protection Act
• H.R. 4802: Feeding Hungry Students in Schools Act of 2021
• H.R. 4747: Open Translation and Analysis Center Authorization Act
• H.R. 4589: Diversity and Inclusion at the Department of State Act
• H.R. 4306: Foreign Service Families Act of 2021
• H.R. 4213: YSEALI Act
• H.R. 3812: Restoring U.S. Leadership in International Organizations Act of 2021

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 2013 to Nov 2021, Castro missed 180 of 5,079 roll call votes, which is 3.5%. This is worse than 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