Sen. Robert “Rob” Portman

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2018 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 liberal–conservative 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 6, 2015 to Sep 16, 2019. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Robert “Rob” Portman sits on the following committees:

• Senate Committee on Finance
  • Chair, Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
  • Member, Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness
  • Member, Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight
• Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
  • Chair, Subcommittee on Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
  • Member, Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management
• Joint Economic Committee
• Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
  • Member, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy
  • Member, Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation
  • Member, Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations, and Bilateral International Development
  • Member, Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women's Issues

Enacted Legislation

Portman was the primary sponsor of 32 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 1023 (115th): Tropical Forest Conservation Reauthorization Act of 2018
• S. 3635: Second Chance Reauthorization Act of 2018
• S. 3050: 21st Century IDEA
• S. 3057: STOP Act of 2018
• S. 226: A bill to exclude power supply circuits, drivers, and devices to be connected to, and power, light-emitting diodes or organic light-emitting diodes providing illumination or ceiling fans using ...
• S. 652: Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act of 2017
• S. 1195: Federal Register Printing Savings Act of 2017

View All »

Does 32 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 (22%) Health (20%) Taxation (17%) Crime and Law Enforcement (12%) Energy (9%) International Affairs (7%) Economics and Public Finance (7%) Armed Forces and National Security (6%)

Recent Bills

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

• S. 2472: Neil A. Armstrong Test Facility Act
• S. 2414: A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend the ...
• S. 2228: A bill to posthumously advance Lieutenant Colonel Richard E. Cole, United States Air ...
• S. 2137: Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2019
• S. 2064: Electronic Court Records Reform Act of 2019
• S. 2065: Deepfake Report Act of 2019
• S. 2002: Dollar-for-Dollar Deficit Reduction Act

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 2011 to Sep 2019, Portman missed 31 of 2,532 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
• GPO Member Guide for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills