Ted Cruz, Senator for Texas

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2016 Report Card for Cruz.

Sponsorship Analysis

Our unique analysis of the bills Cruz has sponsored and cosponsored provides insight into his position in the Senate.

Each dot in the chart below is a member of the Senate. The dots are positioned horizontally according to our progressive—conservative ideology score and vertically according to our leadership score (leaders toward the top). Cruz is shown as a purple triangle. (analysis methodology)

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

FreedomWorks: 100% Americans for Prosperity: 98% American Civil Liberties Union: 5% League of Conservation Voters: 3% Human Rights Campaign: 0% NIAC Action: F Planned Parenthood Action Fund: 0%

Committee Membership

Ted Cruz sits on the following committees:

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
- Chair, Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness
- Member, Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security
- Member, Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet
- Member, Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and Data Security
Senate Committee on the Judiciary
- Chair, Subcommittee on the Constitution
- Member, Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration
- Member, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
Joint Economic Committee
Senate Committee on Armed Services
- Member, Subcommittee on Airland
- Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
- Member, Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
Senate Committee on Rules and Administration

Enacted Legislation

Cruz was the primary sponsor of 6 bills that were enacted:

View All »

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 about one third or more 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

Cruz sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (31%) Immigration (18%) Government Operations and Politics (16%) Health (10%) Taxation (7%) Crime and Law Enforcement (7%) Science, Technology, Communications (6%) Energy (5%)

Recent Bills

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

View All »

Voting Record

Key Votes

Cruz’s Vote	Vote Description
Nay	H.R. 5325: Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2017 Sep 28, 2016. Bill Passed 72/26.
Not Voting	S. 2012: Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 Apr 20, 2016. Bill Passed 85/12. This week, the Senate began debate on the first major energy legislation to be considered since 2007. Introduced by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), the bill -- S. 2012, the Energy Policy Modernization Act -- received an unlikely overwhelming bipartisan vote when it passed out of ...
Nay	H.R. 22: Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy Act Dec 3, 2015. Conference Report Agreed to 83/16. H.R 22, formerly the Hire More Heroes Act, has become the Senate’s vehicle for passage of the Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy Act or DRIVE Act (S. 1647). The DRIVE Act is a major bipartisan transportation bill that would authorize funding ...
Nay	H.R. 22: Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy Act Jul 30, 2015. Bill Passed 65/34. This vote turned H.R 22, originally the Hire More Heroes Act, into the Senate’s vehicle for passage of the Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy Act or DRIVE Act (S. 1647), a major bipartisan transportation bill, and the Export-Import Bank Reform and ...
Nay	S. 1177: Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 Jul 16, 2015. Bill Passed 81/17. The Every Child Achieves Act is a bipartisan educational policy reform bill that would expand state responsibility over schools, provide grants to charter schools, and reduce the federal test-based accountability system of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The bill was referred to the ...
Yea	H.R. 5771 (113th): Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014 Dec 16, 2014. Bill Passed 76/16.
Nay	H.R. 3979 (113th): Carl Levin and Howard P. “Buck” McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 Dec 12, 2014. Motion Agreed to 89/11. This bill became, most recently, the vehicle for the passage of the defense authorization (spending) bill for fiscal year 2015. The bill was originally introduced by Rep. Lou Barletta as the Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act. It was passed by the House in ...
Nay	H.J.Res. 124 (113th): Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015 Sep 18, 2014. Joint Resolution Passed 78/22.
Nay	H.R. 4302 (113th): Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 Mar 31, 2014. Bill Passed 64/35. Section 212 of this bill pushed back the deadline to implement the ICD-10 code set to October 1, 2015. The Cutting Costly Codes Act of 2013, which would prevent ICD-10 from being implemented at all without further Congressional approval, has been introduced in House and ...
Nay	H.R. 3304 (113th): National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 Dec 19, 2013. Motion Agreed to 84/15.

Missed Votes

From Jan 2013 to Oct 2017, Cruz missed 210 of 1,378 roll call votes, which is 15.2%. This is much worse than the median of 1.4% among the lifetime records of senators currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
2013 Jan-Mar	92	1	1.1%	62^nd
2013 Apr-Jun	76	1	1.3%	36^th
2013 Jul-Sep	43	1	2.3%	73^rd
2013 Oct-Dec	80	13	16.3%	95^th
2014 Jan-Mar	93	0	0.0%	0^th
2014 Apr-Jun	123	14	11.4%	90^th
2014 Jul-Sep	54	1	1.9%	61^st
2014 Nov-Dec	96	13	13.5%	93^rd
2015 Jan-Mar	135	21	15.6%	98^th
2015 Apr-Jun	85	32	37.6%	99^th
2015 Jul-Sep	52	7	13.5%	91^st
2015 Oct-Dec	67	20	29.9%	97^th
2016 Jan-Mar	38	36	94.7%	98^th
2016 Apr-Jun	79	44	55.7%	98^th
2016 Jul-Sep	34	1	2.9%	61^st
2016 Nov-Dec	12	1	8.3%	90^th
2017 Jan-Mar	101	3	3.0%	86^th
2017 Apr-Jun	54	1	1.9%	62^nd
2017 Jul-Sep	53	0	0.0%	0^th
2017 Oct-Oct	11	0	0.0%	0^th

Primary Sources

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

Congress-Legislators, a community project collecting election information
The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
GPO Member Guide for the photo
GPO.gov/FDSys, for sponsored bills

Sen. Ted Cruz

What you can do

I have an opinion I want to share.

I need help, have a question, or want to schedule a tour.

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Sponsorship Analysis

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

Committee Membership

Enacted Legislation

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Recent Bills

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

Primary Sources

	Automatic Gun Fire Prevention Act would ban devices used in the Las Vegas massacre – Oct 10, 2017 Semi-automatic weapons are legal in America. Automatic weapons are illegal. But what about a device that converts a semi-automatic weapon…
	Should a website get sued or shut down because of something a user posted? – Oct 5, 2017 A new bill could become the first law to apply criminal penalties to website owners due to posts of that site’s users — or so Silicon…
	Next week, Republicans might ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy – Sep 29, 2017 Next week, the House will vote the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Sen. Ted Cruz

What you can do

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Sponsorship Analysis

Ratings from Advocacy Organizations

Committee Membership

Enacted Legislation

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Recent Bills

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

Primary Sources

Follow GovTrack on social media for more updates: