Ellison was the representative for Minnesota’s 5th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 2007 to 2018.
![Photo of Rep. Keith Ellison [D-MN5, 2007-2018]](/static/legislator-photos/412215-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2018 Report Card for Ellison.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Ellison is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2018 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 Ellison sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2013 to Dec 21, 2018. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Ellison was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 4386 (113th): Money Remittances Improvement Act of 2014
- H.R. 2747 (110th): Methamphetamine Production Prevention Act of 2007
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
Ellison sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Finance and Financial Sector (19%) Taxation (19%) Commerce (11%) Government Operations and Politics (11%) Labor and Employment (11%) Housing and Community Development (11%) Immigration (10%) Transportation and Public Works (8%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Ellison recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 7401 (115th): Strengthening Refugee Resettlement Act
- H.R. 6096 (115th): Reward Work Act
- H.R. 5632 (115th): End Employer Collusion Act
- H.R. 5609 (115th): Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, and Reliability Act of 2018
- H.R. 5072 (115th): Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act of 2018
- H.R. 4686 (115th): 21st Century Competition Commission Act of 2017
- H.R. 4538 (115th): Merger Retrospective Act of 2017
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2007 to Dec 2018, Ellison missed 661 of 8,876 roll call votes, which is 7.4%. This is much worse than the median of 2.5% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2018. 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
