2019 Report Cards
All Senators
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Writing Bipartisan Bills
These special year-end statistics dissect the legislative records of Members of Congress during the 2019 legislative year (Jan 3, 2019-Dec 31, 2019), looking at Members who served at the end of that period. This page was last updated on Jan 18, 2020.
A higher or lower number below doesn’t necessarily make a 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 legislating and make your own judgements based on what legislative 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.
Look at report cards for...
- All Representatives (437)
- House Democrats (236)
- House Republicans (200)
- Serving 10+ Years (House) (150)
- All Senators (100)
- House Freshmen (92)
- House Sophomores (55)
- Senate Republicans (53)
- Senate Democrats (45)
- Serving 10+ Years (Senate) (42)
- Senate Party Leaders (12)
Writing Bipartisan Bills
In this era of partisanship, it is encouraging to see Members of Congress working across the aisle. This is the number of bills introduced by each legislator in 2019 which had a cosponsor from the other political party than the party the legislator caucused with.
Only Members of Congress who caucused with either the Democrats or the Republicans are included in this statistic. Cosponsors who caucused with neither party do not count toward this statistic.
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.
