Rep. John Sarbanes

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2019 Report Card for Sarbanes.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Sarbanes 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 liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Sarbanes has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2015 to Feb 26, 2020. See full analysis methodology.

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

Committee Membership

John Sarbanes sits on the following committees:

• House Committee on Energy and Commerce
  Energy, Health, Oversight and Investigations subcommittees
• House Committee on Oversight and Reform
  Government Operations subcommittees

Enacted Legislation

Sarbanes was the primary sponsor of 4 bills that were enacted:

• H.R. 1722 (111th): Telework Enhancement Act of 2010
• H.R. 4322 (111th): National Foundation on Physical Fitness and Sports Establishment Act
• H.R. 3218 (110th): To designate a portion of Interstate Route 395 located in Baltimore, Maryland, as “Cal Ripken Way”.
• H.R. 1388 (110th): Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail Act

View All »

Does 4 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

Sarbanes sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (43%) Health (24%) Energy (14%) Education (10%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (10%)

Recent Bills

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

• H.R. 5684: Chesapeake Bay Science, Education, and Ecosystem Enhancement Act of 2019
• H.R. 5527: 21st Century Power Grid Act
• H.R. 4707: Federal Firefighter Flexibility and Fairness Act
• H.R. 3850: Creating Candidate Capacity to Protect Act
• H.R. 2441: What You Can Do For Your Country Act
• H.R. 2427: Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network Reauthorization Act of 2019
• H.R. 2075: School-Based Health Centers Reauthorization Act of 2019

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 2007 to Feb 2020, Sarbanes missed 121 of 9,652 roll call votes, which is 1.3%. This is better than the median of 2.2% 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