Rep. Michael Burgess’s 2014 Report Card
Representative
from Texas's 26th District
Republican
Serving Jan 7, 2003 – Jan 3, 2025
These statistics cover Burgess’s record during the 113th Congress (Jan 3, 2013-Jan 2, 2015) and compare him to other representatives also serving at the end of the session. Last updated on Jan 12, 2015. Although Rep. Suzan DelBene [D-WA1], Rep. Thomas Massie [R-KY4], Rep. Donald Payne [D-NJ10], and Sen. Brian Schatz [D-HI] served in the 112th Congress, they took office within the last two months of the 112th Congress and here are grouped with other freshmen for the 113th Congress.
A higher or lower number below doesn’t necessarily make this legislator any better or worse, or more or less effective, than other Members of Congress. We present these statistics for you to understand the quantitative aspects of Burgess’s legislative career and make your own judgements based on what activities you think are important.
Keep in mind that there are many important aspects of being a legislator besides what can be measured, such as constituent services and performing oversight of the executive branch, which aren’t reflected here.
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Introduced the 2nd most bills compared to House RepublicansBurgess introduced 49 bills and resolutions in the 113th Congress. View Bills » Compare to all Texas Delegation (92nd percentile); Serving 10+ Years (97th percentile); House Republicans (99th percentile); Safe House Seats (98th percentile); All Representatives (98th percentile). |
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Got their bills out of committee the 2nd most often compared to All Representatives (tied with 2 others)Most bills and resolutions languish in committee without any action. Burgess introduced 21 bills in the 113th Congress that got past committee and to the floor for consideration. Those bills were: H.Res. 175: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 215: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 288: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 300: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 315: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 339: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 413: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 420: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 455: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 497: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 515: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 530: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 555: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 616: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 636: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 670: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 717: Providing for consideration of the …; H.Res. 756: Providing for consideration of the …; H.R. 594: Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy …; H.R. 2810: Medicare Patient Access and Quality …; H.R. 4080: Trauma Systems and Regionalization of … Compare to all Texas Delegation (94th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (98th percentile); House Republicans (98th percentile); Safe House Seats (99th percentile); All Representatives (99th percentile). |
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Ranked 20th most politically right compared to Serving 10+ YearsOur unique ideology analysis assigns a score to Members of Congress according to their legislative behavior by how similar the pattern of bills and resolutions they cosponsor are to other Members of Congress. For more, see our methodology. Note that because on this page only legislative activity in the 113th Congress is considered, the ideology score here may differ from Burgess’s score elsewhere on GovTrack. Compare to all Texas Delegation (64th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (89th percentile); House Republicans (63rd percentile); Safe House Seats (80th percentile); All Representatives (80th percentile). |
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Ranked the 29th top leader compared to All RepresentativesOur unique leadership analysis looks at who is cosponsoring whose bills. A higher score shows a greater ability to get cosponsors on bills. For more, see our methodology. Note that because on this page only legislative activity in the 113th Congress is considered, the leadership score here may differ from Burgess’s score elsewhere on GovTrack. Compare to all Texas Delegation (86th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (92nd percentile); House Republicans (88th percentile); Safe House Seats (93rd percentile); All Representatives (93rd percentile). |
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Joined bipartisan bills the 30th least often compared to Serving 10+ YearsOf the 241 bills that Burgess cosponsored, 9% were introduced by a legislator who was not a Republican. View Cosponsored Bills » Compare to all Texas Delegation (50th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (16th percentile); House Republicans (47th percentile); Safe House Seats (26th percentile); All Representatives (25th percentile). Only Democratic and Republican Members of Congress who cosponsored more than 10 bills and resolutions are included in this statistic. |
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Got influential cosponsors the 25th most often compared to House Republicans (tied with 11 others)6 of Burgess’s bills and resolutions in the 113th Congress had a cosponsor who was a chair or ranking member of a committee that the bill was referred to. Getting support from committee leaders on relevant committees is a crucial step in moving legislation forward. Those bills were: H.R. 1325: Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for …; H.R. 1428: Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for …; H.R. 2810: Medicare Patient Access and Quality …; H.R. 3396: Veterans Health Care Stamp Act; H.R. 4015: SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider …; H.R. 4080: Trauma Systems and Regionalization of … Compare to all Texas Delegation (83rd percentile); Serving 10+ Years (76th percentile); House Republicans (85th percentile); Safe House Seats (84th percentile); All Representatives (84th percentile). |
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Got bicameral support on the 26th most bills compared to House Republicans (tied with 14 others)The House and Senate often work on the same issue simultaneously by introducing Those bills were: H.R. 1325: Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for …; H.R. 1428: Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for …; H.R. 2663: To amend the Congressional Budget …; H.R. 4015: SGR Repeal and Medicare Provider … Compare to all Texas Delegation (83rd percentile); Serving 10+ Years (74th percentile); House Republicans (83rd percentile); Safe House Seats (81st percentile); All Representatives (80th percentile). Companion bills are those that are identified as “identical” by Congress’s Congressional Research Service. |
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Got the 36th most cosponsors on their bills compared to All RepresentativesBurgess’s bills and resolutions had 675 cosponsors in the 113th Congress. Securing cosponsors is an important part of getting support for a bill, although having more cosponsors does not always mean a bill will get a vote. View Bills » Compare to all Texas Delegation (89th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (89th percentile); House Republicans (90th percentile); Safe House Seats (91st percentile); All Representatives (92nd percentile). |
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Held the 47th most committee positions compared to All Representatives (tied with 18 others)Burgess held a leadership position on 0 committees and 2 subcommittees, as either a chair (majority party) or ranking member (minority party), at the end of the session. For comparison to other Members of Congress, we assigned a score giving five points for each full committee leadership position and one point for each subcommittee leadership position. View Burgess’s Profile » Compare to all Texas Delegation (67th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (71st percentile); House Republicans (82nd percentile); Safe House Seats (85th percentile); All Representatives (85th percentile). |
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Laws EnactedBurgess introduced 1 bill that became law in the 113th Congress. Keep in mind that it takes a law to repeal a law. Very few bills ever become law. View Enacted Bills » Those bills were: H.R. 594: Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy … Compare to all Texas Delegation (64th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (63rd percentile); House Republicans (58th percentile); Safe House Seats (65th percentile); All Representatives (65th percentile). A bill or joint resolution is considered enacted if it or an exactly identical bill to it is enacted as law. We only consider bills that the legislator was the primary sponsor of. While a legislator may lay claim to authoring other bills that became law, such as through incorporation into larger bills, these cases are difficult for us to track quantitatively. |
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Writing Bipartisan BillsBurgess tends to gather cosponsors only on one side of the aisle. 39% of Burgess’s 49 bills and resolutions had both a Democratic cosponsor and a Republican cosponsor in the 113th Congress. Compare to all Texas Delegation (65th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (63rd percentile); House Republicans (47th percentile); Safe House Seats (63rd percentile); All Representatives (59th percentile). Only Members of Congress who sponsored more than 10 bills and resolutions are included in this statistic. |
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Bills CosponsoredBurgess cosponsored 241 bills and resolutions introduced by other Members of Congress. Cosponsorship shows a willingness to work with others to advance policy goals. View Cosponsored Bills » Compare to all Texas Delegation (61st percentile); Serving 10+ Years (47th percentile); House Republicans (65th percentile); Safe House Seats (49th percentile); All Representatives (47th percentile). |
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Missed VotesBurgess missed 2.0% of votes (24 of 1,204 votes) in the 113th Congress. View Burgess’s Profile » Compare to all Texas Delegation (33rd percentile); Serving 10+ Years (30th percentile); Safe House Seats (40th percentile); All Representatives (42nd percentile). The Speaker of the House, per current House rules, is not required to vote in “ordinary legislative proceedings” and is never recorded as missing a vote, and may not be included in the comparison with other representatives if not voting. The delegates from the five island territories and the District of Columbia are not eligible to vote in most roll call votes and so may not appear here if not elligible for any vote during the time period of these statistics. |
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Government TransparencyGovTrack looked at whether Burgess supported any of 12 government transparency, accountability, and effectiveness bills in the House that we identified in this session. We gave Burgess 0 points, based on one point for cosponsoring and three points for sponsoring any of these bills. Compare to all Texas Delegation (0th percentile); Serving 10+ Years (0th percentile); House Republicans (0th percentile); Safe House Seats (0th percentile); All Representatives (0th percentile). |
Additional Notes
Leadership/Ideology: The leadership and ideology scores are not displayed for Members of Congress who introduced fewer than 10 bills, or, for ideology, for Members of Congress that have a low leadership score, as there is usually not enough data in these cases to compute reliable leadership and ideology statistics.
Missing Bills: We exclude bills from some statistics where the sponsor’s original intent is not in the final bill because the bill’s text was replaced in whole with unrelated provisions (i.e. it became a vehicle for passage of unrelated provisions).
Ranking Members (RkMembs): The chair of a committee is always selected from the political party that holds the most seats in the chamber, called the “majority party”. The “ranking member” (sometimes “RkMembs”) is the title given to the senior-most member of the committee not in the majority party.
Freshmen/Sophomores: Freshmen and sophomores are Members of Congress whose first term (in the same chamber at the end of the 113th Congress) was the 113th Congress (freshmen) or 112th (sophomores). Members of Congress who took office within the last few months of a Congress are considered freshmen in the next Congress as well.