Sen. Richard Durbin

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2019 Report Card for Durbin.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Durbin 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 Durbin has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2015 to Feb 13, 2020. See full analysis methodology.

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

Committee Membership

Richard Durbin sits on the following committees:

• Senate Committee on Appropriations
  • Department of Defense subcommittee Ranking Member

  Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies subcommittees
• Senate Committee on the Judiciary
  • Border Security and Immigration subcommittee Ranking Member

  the Constitution, Crime and Terrorism, Intellectual Property subcommittees
• Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
  Commodities, Risk Management, and Trade, Conservation, Forestry, and Natural Resources, Rural Development and Energy subcommittees
• Senate Committee on Rules and Administration

Enacted Legislation

Durbin was the primary sponsor of 34 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 2830: SIREN Act of 2018
• S. 3345 (114th): A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1101 Davis Street in Evanston, Illinois, as the “Abner J. Mikva Post Office ...
• S. 2891 (114th): A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 525 North Broadway in Aurora, Illinois, as the “Kenneth M. Christy Post Office ...
• S. 2921 (113th): A bill to designate the community based outpatient clinic of the Department of Veterans Affairs located at 310 Home Boulevard in Galesburg, Illinois, as the “Lane A. ...
• S. 1503 (113th): School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act
• S. 796 (113th): A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 302 East Green Street in Champaign, Illinois, as the “James R. Burgess Jr. ...
• S. 1573 (112th): Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2012

View All »

Does 34 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 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Durbin sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Health (23%) Education (22%) Crime and Law Enforcement (15%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Taxation (8%) Government Operations and Politics (8%) International Affairs (8%) Emergency Management (6%)

Recent Bills

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

• S. 3190: Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2020
• S. 3103: Rural Hospital Closure Relief Act of 2019
• S. 3096: PREVENT Act of 2020
• S. 3071: Family Medical Leave Modernization Act
• S. 3058: Foreign Medical School Accountability Fairness Act of 2019
• S. 3056: America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act
• S. 3035: Elderly Home Detention Pilot Program Technical Corrections Act of 2019

View All » | View Cosponsors »

As Senate Minority Whip, Durbin may be focused on his responsibilities other than introducing legislation, such as setting the chamber’s agenda, uniting his party, and brokering deals.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 1997 to Feb 2020, Durbin missed 86 of 7,314 roll call votes, which is 1.2%. This is on par with 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.

Show the numbers...

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
• United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990 by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole.
• Martis’s “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress”, via Keith Poole’s roll call votes data set, for political party affiliation for Members of Congress from 1789 through about year 2000
• GPO Member Guide for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills