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Contact: Dave Levinthal, 202-354-0111

WASHINGTON — No matter that they’re the newest kids in Congress.

Like their veteran counterparts, U.S. House and U.S. Senate freshmen are together a notably wealthy bunch, enjoying exponentially greater wealth than most of the Americans they represent, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of federal personal financial disclosure reports.

Sixty percent of Senate freshman and more than 40 percent of House freshmen are millionaires, the Center’s study finds. Roughly 1 percent of Americans at large claim the same lofty financial status.

“Even though millions of Americans continue to struggle financially, most of the nation’s newest congressional representatives are a world away from such constituents’ financial realities,” said Sheila Krumholz, the Center’s executive director.

Freshmen congressmen also appear generally immune to the nation’s persistently soft economy, in which joblessness still hovers around 9 percent and many of the country’s regions continue to claw their way back from the recent recession.

The Center calculates that the median estimated wealth for Senate freshman is $3.96 million. For House freshmen, it’s $570,418.

The House number is slightly less than the median wealth of the 111th House, as calculated by the Center in November based on personal financial disclosure reports released in 2009 — the most recent reports publicly available.

But the wealth of Senate freshmen in the 112th Congress is, on average, greater than the average wealth of senators from the 111th Congress.

A FRESHMAN CLASS WORTH HALF A BILLION?

By law, members of Congress are only required to report their assets and liabilities in broad ranges. It’s therefore impossible to precisely determine how much value their assets are worth, or have gained or lost. Federal law also requires that members of Congress detail any assets owned or debts owed by their spouses and dependent children.

The Center determines the minimum and maximum possible asset values for each member of Congress to calculate a member’s average estimated wealth. Sometimes, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, separate a lawmaker’s minimum calculated wealth from his or her maximum calculated wealth.

Given this, the full freshman class of the 112th Congress has an estimated wealth of $533.1 million, with a minimum net worth of about $221 million and a maximum net worth of about $845.2 million. This group includes former members of Congress who, after being out of Congress for varying lengths of time, again won election.

“Some are Democrats, some are Republicans, many are Tea Party conservatives while others are unabashedly liberal,” said Dan Auble, who manages the Center’s personal financial disclosure database. “What unites these freshmen is that, on balance, they’re rich.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) tops all congressional freshmen with an average estimated wealth of $94.87 million. Blumenthal used several million dollars of his own money to defeat Republican Linda McMahon — a former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment and herself a multi-millionaire — in the most expensive congressional campaign of the 2010 election cycle.

Blumenthal is followed on the congressional freshmen rich list by seven House freshmen, all of whom have an average calculated wealth somewhere between $22.1 million and $49.4 million. They are:



• Diane Lynn Black (R-Tenn.), $49.4 million

• Rick Berg (R-N.D.), $39.2 million

• Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), $35.8 million

• Scott Rigell (R-Va.), $29.9 million

• James Renacci (R-Ohio), $28.4 million

• Steve Pearce (R-N.M.), $23.2 million

• Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), $22.1 million

HARD FINANCIAL TIMES FOR A FEW

There are several freshmen who, however, have little reportable wealth at all.

A prime example is Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), whose reportable assets range somewhere between a minimum of -$481,994 and a maximum of -$153,001, for an average estimate of -$317,498. He is the only member of the congressional freshman class with a minimum and maximum estimated worth in negative territory.

For other freshmen, their financial pictures are less definitive. Because of the broad ranges members use to report their assets and liabilities, a few of them have investment portfolios that might be dripping with red ink — or, perhaps, perfectly in the black.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), for instance, has a minimum net worth of -$210,989, but a maximum net worth of $135,999. Likewise, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) reports assets that range from a minimum of -$32,995 to $193,998.

Former MTV “Real World” star and current Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) has a net worth that likely, but not necessarily, dips into the negative realm, with a minimum worth of -$837,984, but a maximum of $2,995.

Several other House freshmen also have a minimum and maximum net worth that fall on opposite sides of zero, including Reps. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), Allen West (R-Fla.), Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) and Tim Griffin (R-Ark.).

Reps. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and Steve Fincher (R-Tenn.) have no reportable assets or liabilities at all — their minimum and maximum figures are $0.

BLUE CHIPS, OIL COMPANIES AMONG POPULAR INVESTMENTS

New members’ favorite assets include stock staples popular with Congress at large, such as General Electric (17 new members invested), Bank of America (11) and AT&T, Cisco Systems, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and Procter & Gamble (each 9).

Coca-Cola ties PepsiCo with seven freshman investors each, while ExxonMobil (7), edges ConocoPhillips (6) and BP (5) among oil companies.

And with national health care and financial reforms still very much in the headlines, new members of Congress have hardly avoided investing in companies that stand to be directly affected by the new laws.

For example, seven freshman reported assets in drugmaker Merck, while seven more disclosed investments in Pfizer. Six listed investments in CVS/Caremark, with Bristol-Myers Squibb attracting four freshmen investors.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase (7), Charles Schwab & Co. (6), Wells Fargo (6), Citigroup (5) and Goldman Sachs (4) ranked highly among banks and financial firms.

Among all assets by new members, Citigroup is notable because of the potential amount of money freshmen lawmakers have collectively invested in it: somewhere between $1.01 million and $5.05 million. In analyzing top freshmen stock investments, only Proctor & Gamble and Wells Fargo also have the possibility of cracking the $1 million mark, and then, just barely.

To download a spreadsheet containing raw data in part used to produce this report, click here: personalfinances_3_2011.xls

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ABOUT THIS REPORT

Federal lawmakers are required to file annual personal financial disclosure reports with the federal government. Disclosure reports will next be filed in mid-May and made publicly available in mid-June.

Because of the volume of data they contain, coupled with Congress’ practice of filing personal financial disclosure reports on paper, it takes the Center for Responsive Politics several months to fully analyze them. Reports that are illegible or contain missing data further complicate efforts to accurately analyze lawmakers’ personal finances in a timely fashion.

The Center advocates for electronic submission of all personal financial disclosure reports in sortable and downloadable formats to provide greater transparency and more meaningful access to this valuable public data.

Complete analysis of federal lawmakers’ personal finances are contained within the Center for Responsive Politics’ updated personal financial disclosure database, available here.

This database is a one-of-a-kind resource and the product of months of research and analysis by the Center.

This report was made possible by the generous support of the Sunlight Foundation. Additional funding was provided by the Open Society Institute and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.



ABOUT THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS

The Center for Responsive Politics is the nation’s premier research group tracking and reporting on money in federal politics and its effect on elections and public policy. The nonpartisan, nonprofit Center aims to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more responsive government.

The Center’s website, OpenSecrets.org, is the most comprehensive resource for campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis available anywhere. The Center relies on support from a combination of foundation grants, individual contributions and custom data work. The Center accepts no contributions from businesses, labor unions or trade associations.



For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: [email protected]

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