Sen. Robert “Rob” Portman

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2020 Report Card for Portman.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Portman is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the Senate 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 has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2017 to Aug 4, 2022. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Robert “Rob” Portman sits on the following committees:

• Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ranking Member
  Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight, Government Operations and Border Management, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations subcommittees
• Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
  • Multilateral International Development, Multilateral Institutions, and International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy subcommittee Ranking Member

  Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues subcommittees
• Joint Economic Committee
• Senate Committee on Finance
  International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy, Taxation and IRS Oversight subcommittees

Enacted Legislation

Portman was the primary sponsor of 53 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 3482: 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 M. …
• S. 2525: Domains Critical to Homeland Security Act
• S. 2581: Automatic Relief for Taxpayers Affected by Major Disasters and Critical Events Act
• S. 2557: A bill to require certain transportation projects to include a value-for-money analysis, and for other purposes.
• S. 2324: Federal Permitting Reform and Jobs Act
• S. 1061: Israel Relations Normalization Act of 2021
• S. 1306: Make PPE in America Act

View All »

Does 53 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 sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (23%) Health (21%) International Affairs (12%) Taxation (10%) Crime and Law Enforcement (10%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (7%) Armed Forces and National Security (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Portman recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 4775: A bill to establish and authorize funding for a Border Patrol Reserve, and …
• S. 4707: A bill to amend the National Trails System Act to direct the Secretary …
• S. 4747: A bill to amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to expand …
• S. 4684: A bill to provide for the implementation of dredged material management plans at …
• S. 4683: Aquatic Invasive Species Control Act
• S. 4488: Global Catastrophic Risk Management Act of 2022
• S. 4450: SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP Act

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 2011 to Aug 2022, Portman missed 74 of 3,785 roll call votes, which is 2.0%. This is on par with the median of 2.4% 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
• GPO Member Guide for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills