Rep. Ken Calvert
Representative for California’s 41st District
pronounced ken // KAL-vert
Calvert is the representative for California’s 41st congressional district (view map) and is a Republican. He has served since Jan 3, 2023. Calvert is next up for reelection in 2024 and serves until Jan 3, 2025. He is 70 years old.
He was previously the representative for California’s 42nd congressional district as a Republican from 2013 to 2022; the representative for California’s 44th congressional district as a Republican from 2003 to 2012; and the representative for California’s 43rd congressional district as a Republican from 1993 to 2002.
![Photo of Rep. Ken Calvert [R-CA41]](/static/legislator-photos/400057-200px.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 state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and by using lies and fraudulent documents was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.
Calvert was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Calvert 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, Calvert voted to omit Arizona and/or Pennsylvania from the counting of presidential electors, which could have altered the outcome of the election in Trump’s favor.
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. In 2023, Trump advisors and associates pleaded guilty to or were convicted of submitting fraudulent slates of electors to Congress (which Trump was briefed on), abetting lies, tampering with voting machines after the election, and assaulting police officers at the Capitol, and Trump faces criminal charges for soliciting the Vice President to subvert Congress’s certification of the election, his role in the fraudulent slates of electors, and the insurrection at the Capitol.
Earmarks
Calvert proposed $46 million in earmarks for fiscal year 2024, including:
- $5 million to City of Indian Wells for “Whitewater Channel Lining”
- $5 million to Riverside County Transportation Commission for “Coachella Valley Rail Project”
- $5 million to Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District for “Lee Lake Wells Project”
View all requests and justifications on Calvert’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
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Calvert 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 Calvert has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Mar 5, 2024. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
Ken Calvert sits on the following committees:
-
House Committee on Appropriations
- Defense subcommittee Chair
Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies subcommittees
Enacted Legislation
Calvert was the primary sponsor of 16 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.R. 5809 (117th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1801 Town and Country Drive in Norco, California, as the “Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui Memorial …
- H.R. 3567 (115th): To authorize the purchase of a small parcel of Natural Resources Conservation Service property in Riverside, California, by the Riverside Corona Resource Conservation District, and for other …
- H.R. 5984 (114th): Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians Water Rights Settlement Act
- H.R. 2822 (114th): Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016
- H.R. 330 (113th): Distinguished Flying Cross National Memorial Act
- H.R. 988 (110th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 5757 Tilton Avenue in Riverside, California, as the “Lieutenant Todd Jason Bryant Post Office”.
- H.R. 2828 (108th): Water Supply, Reliability, and Environmental Improvement Act
Does 16 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
Calvert sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Armed Forces and National Security (24%) Crime and Law Enforcement (17%) Environmental Protection (14%) Government Operations and Politics (14%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (10%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (7%) Immigration (7%) Health (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Calvert recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 7217: Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024
- H.R. 7186: Treatment and Homelessness Housing Integration Act of 2024
- H.R. 7033: WEST Act of 2024
- H.R. 6656: Stuck On Hold Act
- H.R. 4365: Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024
- H.R. 4214: Military Equipment Quality and Safety Reform Act
- H.R. 3041: Secure Americans from Financial Exploitation (SAFE) Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 1993 to Mar 2024, Calvert missed 506 of 19,911 roll call votes, which is 2.5%. This is on par with the median of 1.9% 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
