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Rep. Rod Blum

Former Representative for Iowa’s 1st District

pronounced rod // blum

Blum was the representative for Iowa’s 1st congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 2015 to 2018.

Photo of Rep. Rod Blum [R-IA1, 2015-2018]

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2018 Report Card for Blum.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Blum is shown as a purple triangle in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2018 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 Blum sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2013 to Dec 21, 2018. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Blum was the primary sponsor of 3 bills that were enacted:

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Does 3 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 110th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Blum sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (31%) Taxation (19%) Health (12%) Native Americans (12%) Commerce (12%) Crime and Law Enforcement (12%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Blum recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Blum voted No

Blum voted No

Passed 348/11 on Dec 19, 2018.

Blum voted No

Passed 351/10 on Dec 19, 2018.

Blum voted Nay

Passed 256/164 on Jan 11, 2018.

This bill became the vehicle for passage of the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017. The bill would extend so-called "section 702" government surveillance under …

Blum voted Yea

Passed 229/177 on May 19, 2017.

H.R. 1039 amends the federal criminal code to authorize a probation officer to arrest a person, without warrant, if there is probable cause to believe …

Blum voted No

Blum voted Aye

Passed 218/208 on Jun 18, 2015.

This vote made H.R. 2146 the vehicle for passage of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal currently being negotiated. H.R. …

Blum voted Nay

Passed 338/88 on May 13, 2015.

The USA Freedom Act (H.R. 2048, Pub.L. 114–23) is a U.S. law enacted on June 2, 2015 that restored in modified form several provisions of …

Missed Votes

From Jan 2015 to Dec 2018, Blum missed 84 of 2,535 roll call votes, which is 3.3%. This is on par with the median of 2.5% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2018. 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.

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Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: