Rep. Maxine Waters’s 2019 Report Card
Representative
from California's 43rd District
Democrat
Serving Jan 3, 2013 – Jan 3, 2025
These year-end statistics cover Waters’s record during the 2019 legislative year (Jan 3, 2019-Dec 31, 2019) and compare her to other representatives serving at the end of that period. Last updated on Jan 18, 2020.
A higher or lower number below doesn’t necessarily make this legislator any better or worse, or more or less effective, than other Members of Congress. We present these statistics for you to understand the quantitative aspects of Waters’s legislative career and make your own judgements based on what activities you think are important.
Keep in mind that there are many important aspects of being a legislator besides what can be measured, such as constituent services and performing oversight of the executive branch, which aren’t reflected here.
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Held the 4th most committee positions compared to California Delegation (tied with 4 others)Waters held a leadership position on 1 committee and 0 subcommittees, as either a chair (majority party) or ranking member (minority party), at the end of the session. For comparison to other Members of Congress, we assigned a score giving five points for each full committee leadership position and one point for each subcommittee leadership position. View Waters’s Profile » Compare to all California Delegation (85th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (73rd percentile); House Democrats (86th percentile); All Representatives (87th percentile). |
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Got their bills out of committee the 6th most often compared to All Representatives (tied with 3 others)Most bills and resolutions languish in committee without any action. Waters introduced 11 bills in 2019 that got past committee and to the floor for consideration. Those bills were: H.Res. 77: Expressing the sense of Congress …; H.Res. 206: Acknowledging that the lack of …; H.R. 624: Promoting Transparent Standards for Corporate …; H.R. 1500: Consumers First Act; H.R. 1856: Ending Homelessness Act of 2019; H.R. 2578: National Flood Insurance Program Extension …; H.R. 3167: National Flood Insurance Program Reauthorization …; H.R. 4328: Protecting Innocent Consumers Affected by …; H.R. 4634: Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization …; H.R. 4863: United States Export Finance Agency …; H.Con.Res. 45: Directing the Clerk of the … Compare to all California Delegation (98th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (96th percentile); House Democrats (97th percentile); All Representatives (98th percentile). |
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Cosponsored the 15th fewest bills compared to House Democrats (tied with 2 others)Waters cosponsored 189 bills and resolutions introduced by other Members of Congress. Cosponsorship shows a willingness to work with others to advance policy goals. View Cosponsored Bills » Compare to all California Delegation (12th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (33rd percentile); House Democrats (6th percentile); All Representatives (38th percentile). |
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Joined bipartisan bills the 20th least often compared to All RepresentativesOf the 189 bills that Waters cosponsored, 5% were introduced by a legislator who was not a Democrat. View Cosponsored Bills » Compare to all California Delegation (6th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (6th percentile); House Democrats (8th percentile); All Representatives (4th percentile). Only Democratic and Republican Members of Congress who cosponsored more than 10 bills and resolutions are included in this statistic. |
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Was 20th most present in votes compared to Serving 10+ Years (tied with 7 others)Waters missed 0.6% of votes (4 of 701 votes) in 2019. View Waters’s Profile » Compare to all California Delegation (25th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (13th percentile); All Representatives (22nd percentile). The Speaker of the House, per current House rules, is not required to vote in “ordinary legislative proceedings” and is never recorded as missing a vote, and may not be included in the comparison with other representatives if not voting. The delegates from the five island territories and the District of Columbia are not eligible to vote in most roll call votes and so may not appear here if not elligible for any vote during the time period of these statistics. |
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Got influential cosponsors the 28th most often compared to All Representatives (tied with 3 others)8 of Waters’s bills and resolutions in 2019 had a cosponsor who was a chair or ranking member of a committee that the bill was referred to. Getting support from committee leaders on relevant committees is a crucial step in moving legislation forward. Those bills were: H.R. 624: Promoting Transparent Standards for Corporate …; H.R. 2292: ACA OUTREACH Act; H.R. 2578: National Flood Insurance Program Extension …; H.R. 2686: Border Property Protection Act; H.R. 3113: To require the United States …; H.R. 3407: United States Export Finance Agency …; H.R. 4550: Minority Diabetes Initiative Act; H.R. 4634: Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization … Compare to all California Delegation (85th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (83rd percentile); House Democrats (88th percentile); All Representatives (93rd percentile). |
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Ranked 50th most politically left compared to All RepresentativesOur unique ideology analysis assigns a score to Members of Congress according to their legislative behavior by how similar the pattern of bills and resolutions they cosponsor are to other Members of Congress. For more, see our methodology. Note that because on this page only legislative activity in 2019 is considered, the ideology score here may differ from Waters’s score elsewhere on GovTrack. Compare to all California Delegation (19th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (18th percentile); House Democrats (21st percentile); All Representatives (11th percentile). |
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Got the 52nd most cosponsors on their bills compared to All RepresentativesWaters’s bills and resolutions had 579 cosponsors in 2019. Securing cosponsors is an important part of getting support for a bill, although having more cosponsors does not always mean a bill will get a vote. View Bills » Compare to all California Delegation (73rd percentile); Serving 10+ Years (77th percentile); House Democrats (79th percentile); All Representatives (88th percentile). |
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Introduced the 53rd most bills compared to All Representatives (tied with 6 others)Waters introduced 27 bills and resolutions in 2019. View Bills » Compare to all California Delegation (77th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (77th percentile); House Democrats (79th percentile); All Representatives (86th percentile). |
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Got bipartisan cosponsors on the 53rd fewest bills compared to House Democrats (tied with 19 others)In this era of partisanship, it is important to see Members of Congress working across the aisle. 5 of Waters’s 27 bills and resolutions had a cosponsor from a different political party than the party Waters caucused with in 2019. Compare to all California Delegation (25th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (31st percentile); House Democrats (22nd percentile); All Representatives (39th percentile). Cosponsors who caucused with neither the Democratic nor Republican party do not count toward this statistic. |
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Ranked the 64th top leader compared to All RepresentativesOur unique leadership analysis looks at who is cosponsoring whose bills. A higher score shows a greater ability to get cosponsors on bills. For more, see our methodology. Note that because on this page only legislative activity in 2019 is considered, the leadership score here may differ from Waters’s score elsewhere on GovTrack. Compare to all California Delegation (69th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (75th percentile); House Democrats (74th percentile); All Representatives (85th percentile). |
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Laws EnactedWaters introduced 1 bill that became law, including via incorporation into other measures, in 2019. Keep in mind that it takes a law to repeal a law. Very few bills ever become law. View Enacted Bills » Those bills were: H.R. 4634: Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization … Compare to all California Delegation (54th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (53rd percentile); House Democrats (57th percentile); All Representatives (63rd percentile). The legislator must be the primary sponsor of the bill or joint resolution that was enacted or the primary sponsor of a bill or joint resolution for which at least about one third of its text was incorporated into another bill or joint resolution that was enacted as law, as determined by an automated analysis. While a legislator may lay claim to authoring other bills that became law, these cases are difficult for us to track quantitatively. We also exclude bills where the sponsor’s original intent is not in the final bill. |
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Working with the SenateThe House and Senate often work on the same issue simultaneously by introducing Those bills were: H.R. 1430: Court Legal Access and Student …; H.R. 2578: National Flood Insurance Program Extension …; H.R. 3113: To require the United States … Compare to all California Delegation (48th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (53rd percentile); House Democrats (50th percentile); All Representatives (62nd percentile). Companion bills are those that are identified as “identical” by Congress’s Congressional Research Service. |
Additional Notes
Leadership/Ideology: The leadership and ideology scores are not displayed for Members of Congress who introduced fewer than 10 bills, or, for ideology, for Members of Congress that have a low leadership score, as there is usually not enough data in these cases to compute reliable leadership and ideology statistics.
Missing Bills: We exclude bills from some statistics where the sponsor’s original intent is not in the final bill because the bill’s text was replaced in whole with unrelated provisions (i.e. it became a vehicle for passage of unrelated provisions).
Ranking Members (RkMembs): The chair of a committee is always selected from the political party that holds the most seats in the chamber, called the “majority party”. The “ranking member” (sometimes “RkMembs”) is the title given to the senior-most member of the committee not in the majority party.
Freshmen/Sophomores: Freshmen and sophomores are Members of Congress whose first term (in the same chamber at the end of 2019) was the 116th Congress (freshmen) or 115th (sophomores). Members of Congress who took office within the last few months of a Congress are considered freshmen in the next Congress as well.
