Rep. Ron Estes
Representative for Kansas’s 4th District
pronounced ron // ess-TUSS
![Photo of Rep. Ron Estes [R-KS4]](/static/legislator-photos/412735-200px.jpeg)
Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his senior government advisors, and Republican legislators collaborated to have the 2020 presidential election decided by themselves rather than by voters. Their attempts to suppress entire state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and using a disinformation campaign of lies and conspiracy theories was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.
Estes was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Estes joined a case before the Supreme Court calling for all the votes for president in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states that were narrowly won by Democrats — to be discarded, in order to change the outcome of the election, based on lies and a preposterous legal argument which the Supreme Court rejected. (Following the rejection of several related cases before the Supreme Court, another legislator who joined the case called for violence.) On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, Estes voted to skip Arizona and/or Pennsylvania in the counting of presidential electors, states which returned certified results for Trump’s opponent. These legislators have generally changed their story after their vote, claiming it was merely a protest and not intended to change the outcome of the election as they clearly sought prior to the vote. The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors. President Trump was indicted in 2023 for soliciting the Vice President to subvert Congress’s certification of the election and his role in the fraudulent slates of electors and the insurrection at the Capitol.
Earmarks
Estes did not request any earmarks for fiscal year 2024.
Most representatives from both parties requested earmarks for fiscal year 2024. Rather than being distributed through a formula or competitive process administered by the executive branch, earmarks may direct spending where it is most needed for the legislator's district. More about FY2024 earmark requests from Demand Progress Education Fund »
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2022 Report Card for Estes.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Estes is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the House of Representatives 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 Estes has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Sep 26, 2023. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
Ron Estes sits on the following committees:
Enacted Legislation
Estes was the primary sponsor of 1 bill that was enacted:
Does 1 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
Estes sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Taxation (32%) Crime and Law Enforcement (14%) Labor and Employment (11%) Health (11%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (11%) Environmental Protection (7%) Arts, Culture, Religion (7%) Animals (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Estes recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 4695: Unfair Tax Prevention Act
- H.R. 3690: Financing Our Energy Future Act
- H.R. 3691: Protecting Air Ambulance Services for Americans Act of 2023
- H.R. 3227: Ensuring Seniors’ Access to Quality Care Act
- H.R. 2673: American Innovation and R&D Competitiveness Act of 2023
- H.Res. 268: Expressing strong opposition to the imposition of digital services taxes by other countries …
- H.R. 461: Protecting Individuals with Down Syndrome Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Apr 2017 to Sep 2023, Estes missed 93 of 3,395 roll call votes, which is 2.7%. This is worse than the median of 1.8% among the lifetime records of representatives 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, major life events, and running for higher office.
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
- Office of Representative Estes for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
