Paul Tonko, Representative for New York's 20th Congressional District

Tonko is the representative for New York’s 20^th congressional district (view map) and is a Democrat. He has served since Jan 3, 2013. Tonko’s current term ends on Jan 3, 2019.

He was previously the representative for New York’s 21^st congressional district as a Democrat from 2009 to 2012.

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2017 Report Card for Tonko.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Tonko 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 liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Tonko has sponsored and cosponsored. See full analysis methodology.

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

American Civil Liberties Union: 100% Human Rights Campaign: 100% Planned Parenthood Action Fund: 100% League of Conservation Voters: 97% NIAC Action: A The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws: C United States Chamber of Commerce: 34% NumbersUSA: 14% FreedomWorks: 10% Americans for Prosperity: 5% The Club for Growth: 4%

Committee Membership

Paul Tonko sits on the following committees:

House Committee on Energy and Commerce
- Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Environment
- Member, Subcommittee on Energy
- Member, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
- Member, Subcommittee on Energy

Enacted Legislation

Tonko was the primary sponsor of 4 bills that were enacted:

View All »

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

Tonko sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Energy (26%) Health (22%) Armed Forces and National Security (22%) Environmental Protection (13%) Education (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (9%)

Recent Bills

Some of Tonko’s most recently sponsored bills include...

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Key Votes

Tonko’s Vote	Vote Description
Yea	H.R. 5797: Individuals in Medicaid Deserve Care that is Appropriate and Responsible in its Execution Act Jun 20, 2018. Passed 261/155. H.R. 5797 allows state Medicaid programs to remove the Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion for Medicaid beneficiaries aged 21 to 64 with an opioid use disorder for fiscal years 2019 to 2023. By removing the exclusion, Medicaid would pay for up to 30 total ...
No	H.J.Res. 43: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the final rule submitted by Secretary of Health and Human Services relating ... Feb 16, 2017. Passed 230/188. Joe Biden never got the opportunity to break a single 50-50 Senate tie in eight years as vice president. Mike Pence has already broken two. One from last month has since become law: a measure allowing states to withhold federal Planned Parenthood funding. (The other ...
No	H.R. 3038: Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015, Part II Jul 15, 2015. Passed 312/119.
No	H.R. 2146: Defending Public Safety Employees’ Retirement Act Jun 18, 2015. Passed 218/208. This vote made H.R. 2146 the vehicle for passage of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal currently being negotiated. H.R. 2146 was originally introduced as a bill to address issues with retirement funds of federal law enforcement officers and firefighters. ...
Yea	H.R. 2048: Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015 May 13, 2015. Passed 338/88. The USA Freedom Act (H.R. 2048, Pub.L. 114–23) is a U.S. law enacted on June 2, 2015 that restored in modified form several provisions of the Patriot Act, which had expired the day before. The act imposes some new limits on the bulk collection of ...
No	H.R. 1731: National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act of 2015 Apr 23, 2015. Passed 355/63.
Nay	H.R. 83 (113th): Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 Dec 11, 2014. Passed 219/206. This bill became the vehicle for passage of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015 [pdf], which was approved by the House on December 11, 2014 and by the Senate on December 13, 2014. The bill was originally introduced on January 3, 2013 by ...
No	H.J.Res. 124 (113th): Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015 Sep 17, 2014. Passed 319/108.
No	H.R. 10 (113th): Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act May 9, 2014. Passed 360/45.
No	H.R. 2218 (112th): Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act Sep 13, 2011. Passed 365/54.
Aye	H.R. 1249 (112th): Leahy-Smith America Invents Act Jun 23, 2011. Passed 304/117. The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on September 16, 2011. The law represents the most significant legislative change to the U.S. patent system since the ...

Missed Votes

From Jan 2009 to Nov 2018, Tonko missed 46 of 6,911 roll call votes, which is 0.7%. This is better than the median of 2.4% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
2009 Jan-Mar	174	1	0.6%	24^th
2009 Apr-Jun	303	1	0.3%	9^th
2009 Jul-Sep	268	2	0.7%	25^th
2009 Oct-Dec	246	0	0.0%	0^th
2010 Jan-Mar	195	2	1.0%	24^th
2010 Apr-Jun	219	2	0.9%	21^st
2010 Jul-Sep	151	0	0.0%	0^th
2010 Nov-Dec	99	3	3.0%	45^th
2011 Jan-Mar	212	0	0.0%	0^th
2011 Apr-Jun	281	1	0.4%	18^th
2011 Jul-Sep	247	2	0.8%	34^th
2011 Oct-Dec	208	0	0.0%	0^th
2012 Jan-Mar	151	1	0.7%	24^th
2012 Apr-Jun	299	5	1.7%	52^nd
2012 Jul-Sep	152	0	0.0%	0^th
2012 Nov-Dec	51	0	0.0%	0^th
2013 Jan-Jan	5	0	0.0%	0^th
2013 Jan-Mar	89	1	1.1%	42^nd
2013 Apr-Jun	215	1	0.5%	24^th
2013 Jul-Sep	200	1	0.5%	26^th
2013 Oct-Dec	137	0	0.0%	0^th
2014 Jan-Mar	148	0	0.0%	0^th
2014 Apr-Jun	219	0	0.0%	0^th
2014 Jul-Sep	147	0	0.0%	0^th
2014 Nov-Dec	49	0	0.0%	0^th
2015 Jan-Mar	139	3	2.2%	61^st
2015 Apr-Jun	244	1	0.4%	27^th
2015 Jul-Sep	139	0	0.0%	0^th
2015 Oct-Dec	177	0	0.0%	0^th
2016 Jan-Mar	137	1	0.7%	18^th
2016 Apr-Jun	204	5	2.5%	57^th
2016 Jul-Sep	232	3	1.3%	55^th
2016 Nov-Dec	48	0	0.0%	0^th
2017 Jan-Mar	208	3	1.4%	51^st
2017 Apr-Jun	136	2	1.5%	45^th
2017 Jul-Sep	199	0	0.0%	0^th
2017 Oct-Dec	167	1	0.6%	24^th
2018 Jan-Mar	129	0	0.0%	0^th
2018 Apr-Jun	184	4	2.2%	45^th
2018 Jul-Sep	102	0	0.0%	0^th
2018 Nov-Nov	1	0	0.0%	0^th

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

Paul Tonko is pronounced:

pawl // TONG-koh

The letters stand for sounds according to the following table:

Letter	Sounds As In
AW aw	law
K k	king
L l	leg
NG ng	sing
O o	top
OH oh	most
P p	pen
T t	top

Capital letters indicate a stressed syllable.

Rep. Paul Tonko

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