Emanuel was the representative for Illinois’s 5th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 2003 to 2008.
![Photo of Rep. Rahm Emanuel [D-IL5, 2003-2008]](/static/legislator-photos/400120-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Emanuel is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2008 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 Emanuel sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 2003 to Dec 10, 2008. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Emanuel was the primary sponsor of 1 bill that was enacted:
Does 1 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
Emanuel sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (16%) Taxation (16%) Finance and Financial Sector (14%) Commerce (13%) Labor and Employment (11%) Social Welfare (10%) Economics and Public Finance (10%) Families (9%)
Recent Bills
Some of Emanuel’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.Res. 1527 (110th): Congratulating the members of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Teams on ...
- H.Res. 1426 (110th): Electing a Member to a certain standing committee of the House of ...
- H.R. 6570 (110th): New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act
- H.Res. 1342 (110th): Electing certain Members to certain standing committees of the House of Representatives.
- H.R. 6371 (110th): Earned Income Credit Information Act of 2008
- H.Res. 1256 (110th): Electing certain Members to certain standing committees of the House of Representatives.
- H.R. 6036 (110th): Lifelong Learning Accounts Act of 2008
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2003 to Dec 2008, Emanuel missed 146 of 4,311 roll call votes, which is 3.4%. This is on par with the median of 3.1% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2008. 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.
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
- Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
