Sen. Robert “Rob” Portman

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2022 Report Card for Portman.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Portman is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2022 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 Portman sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2017 to Dec 22, 2022. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Portman was the primary sponsor of 62 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 4052 (117th): Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act of 2022
• S. 4166 (117th): Technological Hazards Preparedness and Training Act of 2022
• S. 4899 (117th): IMPROVE Act
• S. 2129 (117th): Otto Warmbier Countering North Korean Censorship and Surveillance Act of 2021
• S. 4128 (117th): Improving Government for America’s Taxpayers Act
• S. 3482 (117th): A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 3493 Burnet Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio, as the “John H. Leahr and Herbert …
• S. 2838 (117th): Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act

View All »

Does 62 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

Portman sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (23%) Health (20%) Taxation (12%) International Affairs (12%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (9%) Crime and Law Enforcement (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (8%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Portman recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 5349 (117th): International Competition for American Jobs Act
• S. 5351 (117th): Stopping Unlawful Negative Machine Impacts through National Evaluation Act
• S. 5352 (117th): Trade with China Strategic Assessment Act of 2022
• S. 5334 (117th): FACE IT Act
• S. 5311 (117th): IRS Customer Service and Transformation Act of 2022
• S. 5237 (117th): Compressed Gas Cylinder Safety and Oversight Improvements Act of 2022
• S. 5108 (117th): Housing for Homeless Students Act of 2022

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 2011 to Dec 2022, Portman missed 79 of 3,912 roll call votes, which is 2.0%. This is on par with the median of 2.4% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Dec 2022. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.

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
• GPO Member Guide for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills