Rep. Bruce Westerman
Representative for Arkansas’s 4th District
pronounced brooss // WEST-er-min
![Photo of Rep. Bruce Westerman [R-AR4]](/static/legislator-photos/412610-200px.jpeg)
Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his advisors and associates, and Republican legislators collaborated to have the 2020 presidential election decided by themselves rather than by voters. Their attempts to suppress state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and by using lies and fraudulent documents was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.
Westerman was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, Westerman 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. In the case, Republicans proffered lies and a novel legal theory 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.)
In 2023, Trump associates and top advisors pleaded guilty to submitting a fraudulent slate of electors to Congress from Georgia, making false statements about purported widespread fraud in the election, and tampering with voting machines after the election, admitted in civil court to posing as fake electors in Wisconsin, and were convicted of contempt of Congress for withholding documents during its investigation and assaulting police officers at the Capitol. Trump associates and top advisors are also facing charges for submitting fraudulent slates of electors to Congress (in Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona) and Trump himself faces criminal charges for soliciting the Vice President to subvert Congress’s certification of the election, coordinating the fraudulent slates of electors, and inciting the insurrection at the Capitol. The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups one member of which was convicted of sedition, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors.
Earmarks
Westerman proposed $27 million in earmarks for fiscal year 2024, including:
- $9 million to Red River Levee District for “Red River Below Denison Dam Project”
- $8 million to Texarkana Regional Airport Authority for “Texarkana Regional Airport Runway Extension”
- $5 million to Long Prairie Levee District for “Red River Emergency Bank Protection - Dickson Revetment”
View all requests and justifications on Westerman’s website »
View analysis and download spreadsheet from Demand Progress Education Fund »
These are earmark requests which may or may not survive the legislative process to becoming law. Most representatives from both parties requested earmarks for fiscal year 2024. Across representatives who requested earmarks, the median total amount requested for this fiscal year was $39 million.
Earmarks are federal expenditures, tax benefits, or tariff benefits requested by a legislator for a specific entity. 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. All earmark requests in the House of Representatives are published online for the public to review. We don’t have earmark requests for senators. The fiscal year begins on October 1 of the prior calendar year. Source: Appropriations.house.gov. Background: Earmark Disclosure Rules in the House
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Westerman 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 Westerman has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to May 24, 2024. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
Bruce Westerman sits on the following committees:
Enacted Legislation
Westerman was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 5923 (115th): Walnut Grove Land Exchange Act
- H.R. 3931 (114th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 620 Central Avenue Suite 1A in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas, as the “Chief Petty …
Does 2 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
Westerman sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Public Lands and Natural Resources (19%) Education (17%) Health (14%) Crime and Law Enforcement (14%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Environmental Protection (8%) Government Operations and Politics (8%) Energy (8%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Westerman recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 7408: America’s Wildlife Habitat Conservation Act
- H.R. 7180: To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 80 …
- H.R. 6906: LAKES Act
- H.R. 6492: EXPLORE Act
- H.J.Res. 96: Compact of Free Association Amendments Act of 2023
- H.Res. 814: Expressing support for the recognition of October 2023 as “National Dyslexia Awareness Month”.
- H.R. 4724: Sara’s Law and the Preventing Unfair Sentencing Act of 2023
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2015 to May 2024, Westerman missed 50 of 5,443 roll call votes, which is 0.9%. This is better than the median of 2.0% 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
- GPO Member Guide for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
