Sen. Marsha Blackburn

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2020 Report Card for Blackburn.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Blackburn is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the Senate 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 Blackburn has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2017 to Aug 7, 2022. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Marsha Blackburn sits on the following committees:

• Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
  • Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security subcommittee Ranking Member

  Communications, Media, and Broadband, Oceans, Fisheries, Climate Change, and Manufacturing, Tourism, Trade, and Export Promotion subcommittees
• Senate Committee on Armed Services
  Cybersecurity, Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Readiness and Management Support subcommittees
• Senate Committee on the Judiciary
  Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety, Intellectual Property, Privacy, Technology, and the Law subcommittees
• Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Enacted Legislation

Blackburn was the primary sponsor of 12 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 3820 (116th): Open Technology Fund Authorization Act
• S. 1235 (116th): Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act
• H.R. 5799 (115th): Medicaid Drug Review, Utilization, Good Governance Improvement Act
• H.R. 4986 (115th): RAY BAUM’S Act of 2018
• H.R. 375 (115th): To designate the Federal building and United States courthouse located at 719 Church Street in Nashville, Tennessee, as the “Fred D. Thompson Federal Building and United States …
• H.J.Res. 86 (115th): Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to “Protecting the Privacy …
• H.R. 2435 (114th): To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act with regard to the Reagan-Udall Foundation.

View All »

Does 12 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

Blackburn sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Health (30%) International Affairs (17%) Armed Forces and National Security (12%) Immigration (11%) Crime and Law Enforcement (8%) Commerce (8%) Science, Technology, Communications (7%) Government Operations and Politics (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Blackburn recently introduced the following legislation:

• S.Res. 735: A resolution acknowledging and commemorating the women in the Army who served in …
• S. 4652: Taiwan Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022
• S.Res. 705: A resolution congratulating the pro-life movement on its historic victory in Dobbs v. …
• S. 4499: A bill to prohibit any requirement that a member of the National Guard …
• S.Res. 692: A resolution recognizing and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the enactment of title …
• S.Res. 677: A resolution recognizing the exemplary service of the soldiers of the 30th Infantry …
• S. 4290: Iran China Accountability Act

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 2019 to Aug 2022, Blackburn missed 65 of 1,572 roll call votes, which is 4.1%. This is worse than the median of 2.4% among the lifetime records of senators 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