Paul is the junior senator from Kentucky and is a Republican. He has served since Jan 5, 2011. Paul is next up for reelection in 2022.
![Photo of Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY]](/static/legislator-photos/412492-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2019 Report Card for Paul.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Paul is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the Senate 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 Paul has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2015 to Feb 13, 2020. See full analysis methodology.
Ratings from Advocacy Organizations
Committee Membership
Rand Paul sits on the following committees:
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Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
- Children and Families subcommittee Chair
Employment and Workplace Safety subcommittees -
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
- Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management subcommittee Chair
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations subcommittees -
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy, Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development subcommittees
- Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Paul sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
International Affairs (22%) Government Operations and Politics (14%) Economics and Public Finance (13%) Crime and Law Enforcement (13%) Environmental Protection (12%) Immigration (10%) Taxation (8%) Armed Forces and National Security (8%)
Recent Bills
Some of Paul’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- S. 3234: Social Security Solvency and Sustainability Act
- S. 3130: Servicemembers Self-Defense Act of 2019
- S. 2962: HELPER Act of 2019
- S. 2923: A bill to modify the criteria used by the Corps of Engineers to ...
- S. 2812: Medicare Patient Empowerment Act of 2019
- S. 2792: Penny Plan to Enhance Infrastructure Act of 2019
- S. 2798: Whistleblower Protection Act of 2019
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2011 to Feb 2020, Paul missed 128 of 2,724 roll call votes, which is 4.7%. This is much worse than the median of 1.5% 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.
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
