Rep. Lee Zeldin
Former Representative for New York’s 1st District
pronounced lee // ZEL-dun
Zeldin was the representative for New York’s 1st congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 2015 to 2022.
![Photo of Rep. Lee Zeldin [R-NY1, 2015-2022]](/static/legislator-photos/412646-200px.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.
Zeldin was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Zeldin 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, Zeldin 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.
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2022 Report Card for Zeldin.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Zeldin is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2022 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 Zeldin sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2017 to Dec 27, 2022. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Zeldin was the primary sponsor of 4 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 1866 (117th): Quantum Network Infrastructure Act of 2021
- H.R. 828 (116th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 25 Route 111 in Smithtown, New York, as the “Congressman Bill Carney Post Office”.
- H.R. 829 (116th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1450 Montauk Highway in Mastic, New York, as the “Army Specialist Thomas J. Wilwerth Post …
- H.J.Res. 132 (115th): Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection relating to “Indirect …
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 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Zeldin sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Armed Forces and National Security (24%) International Affairs (17%) Crime and Law Enforcement (13%) Finance and Financial Sector (11%) Government Operations and Politics (11%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (9%) Immigration (9%) Housing and Community Development (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Zeldin recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.Con.Res. 100 (117th): Expressing the sense of Congress in opposition to the establishment of a …
- H.R. 6940 (117th): Israel Anti-Boycott Act
- H.R. 5790 (117th): Neutralizing Unfair Chinese Export Subsidies Act of 2021
- H.R. 5303 (117th): September 11 Day of Remembrance Act
- H.Con.Res. 45 (117th): Expressing the sense of Congress regarding the execution-style murders of United States …
- H.R. 4073 (117th): Countering Hizballah in Lebanon’s Military Act of 2021
- H.Res. 283 (117th): Establishing a “Bill of Rights” to support United States law enforcement personnel …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2015 to Dec 2022, Zeldin missed 174 of 4,487 roll call votes, which is 3.9%. This is worse than the median of 2.0% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2022. 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
