What can GovTrack data tell us about the thirteen most recent and current Members of Congress running for President?
What can GovTrack data tell us about the most recent and current Members of Congress running for President? We look at bill sponsorship and key votes for a unique analysis of these Democratic presidential hopefuls.
Democrats are preparing for their bid to retake the executive branch. But they don’t all share the same approach to the task. Some have taken up a message of unity to combat a national sense of polarization in politics, while others have moved further left to capitalize on the growing progressive movement.
By looking at GovTrack ideology scores for these thirteen candidates, we can sort them into four categories: the most liberal, the middle, the moderate, and the conservative and we can examine their policy interests, co-sponsorships, and key votes to get a better understanding of these Members as they begin their campaigns.
Most Liberal
There are three candidates GovTrack rates most liberal. In order of their 2018 report card ideology scores they are: senators. Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris. These three have all cosponsored bills to provide Medicare access for all Americans and make college tuition-free for working and middle class students attending public universities. They are the least likely candidates to introduce or support bipartisan legislation, and often break with the Democratic party to oppose certain bipartisan appropriations bills.
Sanders may have had the lowest leadership score among the candidates, lower even than Harris, who has only served for two years, but among the progressives Sanders is a distinct leader. He was the primary sponsor of not only the Medicare for All and College for All Acts, but also of the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the federal minimum wage to $15/hr and was cosponsored by every other candidate.
The Middle
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker can be considered the middle of the pack, but don’t be deceived; that still means they are quite liberal. Both candidates cosponsored Sanders’ Medicare for All and Raise the Wage Act. They both also cosponsored another bill to make college tuition-free, along with Gillibrand and Harris.
These candidates are less liberal in our calculations because of their frequency working across the aisle. Warren in particular may come as a surprise. While the Democratic leader has been characterized as partisan, over half of the bills she has introduced in her time in Congress have had a Republican cosponsor, such as the End Banking for Human Traffickers Act, which we summarized. We also summarized one of Booker’s bipartisan bills, the Eliminating Federal Tax Subsidies for Stadiums Act.
Moderate
Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, Eric Swalwell, Tim Ryan, and Seth Moulton are the moderates of the thirteen candidates. For all but Swalwell, over a third of the bills they cosponsored were introduced by a Republican (Klobuchar | Gabbard | Ryan | Moulton), and over half of the bills they introduced had Republican cosponsors. Klobuchar introduced the most legislation of Senate Democrats, more than two-thirds of which were cosponsored by a senator across the aisle, such as congressional accountability reforms including protections against sexual harassment. Ex-Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who left Congress at the end of 2018, had a record of bipartisanship similar to the other moderates.
Of the moderates, only Swalwell and Ryan have expressed support for Medicare for all. Swalwell said it was “the obvious solution,” and Ryan was one of the founders of the new House Medicare for All caucus. The rest seem to support universal healthcare, but about Medicare for All Klobuchar said “I think it is something we can look to for the future, but I want to get action now.” Instead, she proposes working on the Affordable Care Act. O’Rourke has supported the Medicare for America Act as an alternative.
Ryan and Gabbard are the only two moderates to endorse tuition-free college. O’Rourke did propose tuition-free community college for Texas during his 2016 campaign, but has not gone as far as federal free tuition.
Conservative
Michael Bennet and John Delaney had the most conservative scores of all thirteen candidates from the 115th Congress. Bennet is the 11th most conservative Senate Democrat. Delaney sets himself apart as almost half the bills he co-sponsored were introduced by Republicans, making him the 10th most conservative Democrat in the House. Neither supports Medicare for all or free tuition. Bennet called Medicare for All a “bad opening offer,” while Delaney proposes creating a unique system to cover Americans until they are 65.
Policy Focus
The thirteen candidates can be sorted by their ideology scores, but that doesn’t give us the full picture of their policies. We also looked at the most common bill subject areas each candidate focused on throughout their legislative career.
Most Candidates are Focusing on Health
It would be hard to understate the importance of health policy going into this election. Every candidate who is currently a Member of Congress has health as their most frequent bill subject with four exceptions — — Kamala Harris, Eric Swalwell, and Seth Moulton. Michael Bennet had health as his second most common bill subject and Tulsi Gabbard had it as her third. Harris has taken more interest in public lands and natural resources, Swalwell in education, and Gabbard and Moulton in armed forces and national security. The two candidates who are no longer in Congress, Beto O’Rourke and John Delaney, also did not have health as one of their top three subjects. They focused on armed forces and national security and international affairs, respectively.
Transparency and Accountability
Every year we give a score to each legislator based on one point for cosponsoring and three points for sponsoring certain bills relating to government transparency, accountability, and effectiveness. In 2018, the top two scores belonged to Kirsten Gillibrand, with the highest score of ten points, and Amy Klobuchar, who earned nine.
Although the two candidates fall on different ends of our ideology spectrum within the Democratic party, they agree on several bills relating to government oversight and accountability in regards to harassment in Congress. Gillibrand earned our top score as the primary sponsor of two bills intended to prevent workplace harassment in Congress. Klobuchar cosponsored one of those bills, the ME TOO Congress Act.
The two also agree on campaign transparency. Klobuchar was the primary sponsor of the Honest Ads Act, which would have required internet companies to reveal the identities and content of advertisements related to elections or campaigns. Gillibrand cosponsored the bill. The two also both cosponsored the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act.
Seth Moulton and Michael Bennet tied in third place with seven points. Eric Swalwell fell in last with one point.
Appropriations
Four of the candidates voted against the bill that ended the recent government shutdown, on grounds that it provided too much funding for immigrant detention centers. Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren all voted against the bill, which passed with the support of 40 other Democrats and both independents.
This was not the first time that any of these candidates opposed a bipartisan appropriations bill. During the 115th Congress (2017–2019), the candidates were most likely to break with their party to oppose certain omnibus appropriations bills, although the bills varied between candidates. The more liberal candidates tended to break with the party more often, with Bernie Sanders and Kirsten Gillibrand opposing eight and six bills, respectively, and the moderates Amy Klobuchar, Tim Ryan, Beto O’Rourke, and John Delaney never doing so.
Tulsi Gabbard opposed six bills as well. With support for Medicare for all and tuition-free college, plus the tendency to break with her party alongside the more liberal candidates, maybe Gabbard’s work in Congress is more nuanced than our ideology scores capture.
Foreign Policy
The candidates tend to agree on most issues of foreign policy, but naturally there are exceptions. Every candidate voted in favor of Bernie Sanders’ resolution to direct United States troops to be removed from Yemen. Only Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet voted in favor of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which funds most military activity.
Bernie Sanders was the only candidate to oppose the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, on the grounds that he opposes sanctioning Iran. However, he approved of the sanctions on Russia included in the same bill.
Amy Klobuchar, Eric Swalwell, Seth Moulton, and John Delaney were the four candidates to vote in favor of the FISA Reauthorization Act of 2017. The act extended Section 702 government surveillance, which allows intelligence agencies to surveil any person who is outside the U.S. and who is not a U.S. citizen. The debate about the law centers on whether it is a necessary tool for counter-terrorism measures or a set of overly broad warrantless surveillance privileges.
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Updated May 3, 2019 to add Michael Bennet.
Updated Apr 26, 2019 to add Rep. Seth Moulton.
Updated Apr 17, 2019 to add Reps. Swalwell and Ryan.
We did not include in this article Democratic candidates Joe Biden or Jay Inslee, who also served in Congress, from 1973 through 2009 and from 1993 through 2012, respectively, because many of the tools we rely on for the analysis above we had not put in place during their service.
This article was written by GovTrack staffer Ben Hammer. For questions or comments please contact ben@govtrack.us.
