Rousseau was the representative for Kentucky’s 5th congressional district and was an Unconditional Unionist. He served from 1865 to 1867.
Misconduct
Rep. Rousseau faced an allegation of assaulting Rep. Grinnell with a cane outside the Capitol for an alleged insult spoken in debate. On Jul. 2, 1866, a special committee recommended expulsion. On Jul. 17, 1866, the House of Representatives censured him, 89-30. On Jul. 21, 1866, he resigned. On Dec. 3, 1866, he was re-elected to fill the vacancy his own resignation created.
| Jul. 2, 1866 | Special committee recommended expulsion. |
| Jul. 17, 1866 | House of Representatives censured, 89-30 |
| Jul. 21, 1866 | Resigned. |
| Dec. 3, 1866 | Re-elected to fill the vacancy his own resignation created. |
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Dec 1865 to Mar 1867, Rousseau missed 328 of 564 roll call votes, which is 58.2%. This is much worse than the median of 25.1% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Mar 1867. 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
- United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990 by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole.
- Martis’s “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress”, via Keith Poole’s roll call votes data set, for political party affiliation for Members of Congress from 1789 through about year 2000
