Rep. Kevin McCarthy
Former Representative for California’s 20th District
pronounced KEH-vin // muh-KAHR-thee
McCarthy was the representative for California’s 20th congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 2023 to 2023.
He was previously the representative for California’s 23rd congressional district as a Republican from 2013 to 2022; and the representative for California’s 22nd congressional district as a Republican from 2007 to 2012.
![Photo of Rep. Kevin McCarthy [R-CA20, 2023-2023]](/static/legislator-photos/412190-200px.jpeg)
Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his senior government advisors, 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.
McCarthy was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, McCarthy 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, based on lies and a preposterous legal argument 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.) On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, McCarthy voted to omit Arizona and/or Pennsylvania from the counting of presidential electors, which could have altered the outcome of the election in Trump’s favor. In 2022, McCarthy defied a subpoena to testify in the investigation of the January 6th Committee.
The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors. In 2023, Trump advisors and associates pleaded guilty to or were convicted of submitting fraudulent slates of electors to Congress (which Trump was briefed on), abetting lies, assaulting police officers at the Capitol, tampering with voting machines after the election, and contempt of Congress for withholding documents during its investigation, and Trump faces criminal charges for soliciting the Vice President to subvert Congress’s certification of the election, his role in the fraudulent slates of electors, and the insurrection at the Capitol.
In the days after the January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol which succeeded in halting, for a time, the electoral count that determined the outcome of the presidential election, McCarthy said President Trump “bears responsibility” and urged him to resign ahead of his impeachment for inciting the insurrection at the Capitol, and said his behavior was “atrocious and totally wrong,” but he returned to supporting the former president shortly after.
Earmarks
McCarthy did not request any earmarks for fiscal year 2024.
Most representatives from both parties requested earmarks for fiscal year 2024. 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. More about FY2024 earmark requests from Demand Progress Education Fund »
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
McCarthy 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 McCarthy has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Apr 17, 2024. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
McCarthy was the primary sponsor of 15 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.R. 2695 (116th): To rename the Success Dam in Tulare County, California, as the Richard L. Schafer Dam.
- H.R. 5509 (115th): Innovations in Mentoring, Training, and Apprenticeships Act
- H.R. 6888 (115th): Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018
- H.R. 1988 (115th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 1730 18th Street in Bakersfield, California, as the “Merle Haggard Post Office Building”.
- H.R. 1989 (115th): VET TEC Act
- H.R. 39 (115th): TALENT Act of 2017
- H.R. 6007 (114th): To amend title 49, United States Code, to include consideration of certain impacts on commercial space launch and reentry activities in a navigable airspace analysis, and for …
Does 15 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
McCarthy sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
International Affairs (19%) Armed Forces and National Security (19%) Health (12%) Social Welfare (12%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (12%) Environmental Protection (12%) Water Resources Development (12%)
Recently Introduced Bills
McCarthy recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 6718: City of Ridgecrest Land Exchange Act
- H.R. 6068: Clergy Act
- H.R. 5617: Space Transformation And Reliability Act
- H.Res. 593: Authorizing video recording in the House Chamber during a joint meeting of Congress …
- H.Res. 523: Authorizing video recording in the House Chamber during a joint meeting of Congress …
- H.R. 2989: Save Our Sequoias Act
- H.Res. 328: Authorizing video recording in the House Chamber during a joint meeting of Congress …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2007 to Dec 2023, McCarthy missed 286 of 11,298 roll call votes, which is 2.5%. This is on par with the median of 2.0% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2023. 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
