Associated Press, CNN
Posted:
Updated:
When the new Congress convenes on Tuesday, Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur will become the longest-serving woman in its history. Yet after 40 years, she sometimes feels like an outsider.
Not because she’s a woman or now in the minority party in the House. It’s that she’s from Middle America, and represents a district populated by working-class folks — a place and people many colleagues have forgotten, Kaptur said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“This is a burden I’ve carried my entire career. It’s a problem in both parties because the leadership tends to come from the coasts and we here in the big middle of the country are not well understood,” she said.
Republicans and Democrats are being forced to confront critical questions about the people and policies they want to represent them as the next election season roars into view.
For Democrats, much depends upon Joe Biden and whether the president will follow through on his plan to seek reelection. Republicans face contentious leadership battles inside their new House majority and at the Republican National Committee.
But former President Donald Trump will be central in virtually every conversation as the GOP enters what will likely be a nasty and crowded presidential primary that begins in earnest this spring.
The threat of political violence still hangs over American politics and next year’s elections.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, sworn in for a second term Sunday, called the sentencing last week of two men convicted of plotting to kidnap her “just,” while urging both parties to confront threats and violent rhetoric.
“Whether it is someone harassing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh or Congressman Fred Upton here in Michigan, or me, or our attorney general, or secretary of state, it’s unacceptable,” she told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in an interview the day she was sworn in. “But I do think it’s important that people on both sides of the aisle, who care more about our democracy than their political agenda, stand up and take it on.”
More political news this week:
-
Drew Angerer // Getty Images
All members of Congress in both the House and Senate earn the same annual salary of $174,000, which is not all that exceptional considering that to live comfortably in Washington D.C. you need to earn a baseline salary of around $144,000. And that number is increasing every year.
Some framers of the Constitution assumed most senators would likely come from wealthy families, and as a result, didn’t require a salary at all. For a brief period of time under the Articles of Confederation, states could actually suspend their congressional representative’s pay if they were dissatisfied with their work.
Despite officially earning what some might consider a relatively modest wage (compared to, for example, executives at S&P 500 companies), some members of Congress are estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars, with several inching closer to nine-figure net worths every year. Some came from wealthy families, while others married into them. Some made their fortunes in private sector careers before entering politics. But what the richest all have in common is vastly diversified portfolios of stock options, government securities, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and real property—which is more extensive than just real estate—among other assets.
Suspicions of insider trading, in which a lawmaker’s job makes them privy to information withheld from the general public and therefore able to act in their own best financial interest, led to the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act. The STOCK Act requires that all stock and securities transactions be disclosed in full within 45 days of the transaction, as well as the disclosure of any asset either worth more than $1,000 at the close of the calendar year or that generated an income of more than $200 during the course of the year.
Still, ethical dilemmas abound. Information that doesn’t technically qualify as inside information and the laws associated with insider trading can still give lawmakers an unfair advantage in the market. A 2022 New York Times analysis of the Capitol Trades database created by 2iQ Research found that 3,700 trades disclosed by lawmakers of both parties between 2019 and 2021 posed potential conflicts of interest between their professional responsibilities, such as the committees they reside on, and their personal finances. Moreover, several members of Congress, many of whom are on the following list, were recently found to have violated the STOCK Act, according to a November 2022 Insider report.
Using a database compiled by Insider from congressional disclosure reports, Stacker ranked current Democratic politicians in Congress by their total estimated net worth. Estimated values were pulled from documents uploaded by each congressional member’s office for 2020, sometimes handwritten, and reference the low end of the estimated range of value for each asset. For some elected officials on this list, the assets of their spouses and dependents are included in their financial estimates, as such holdings bear relevance to that official’s accumulated wealth relative to their position within the federal government.
You may also like: States with the most liberals
-
Hyoung Chang // Getty Images
– Senator from Colorado
– Estimated net worth: $6.8 million
Michael Bennet worked in both the public and private sectors before entering politics, the latter of which being where he made most of his money. His resume includes roles as managing director for the Anschutz Investment Company, where his team merged several movie theater chains to create the Regal Entertainment Group, as well as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools. Bennet’s portfolio includes stocks, real estate, and hedge fund investments.
-
Paul Morigi // Getty Images
– Senator from Rhode Island
– Estimated net worth: $6.8 million
Sheldon Whitehouse has been a congressman for 15 years. Before that, he served as Rhode Island State Attorney General, United States Attorney, and the director of the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation before entering politics. The senator’s top assets include real estate and stock investments.
-
Alex Wong // Getty Images
– Representative from Michigan
– Estimated net worth: $6.9 million
Before becoming the representative of Michigan’s 6th District in November 2022, Debbie Dingell represented Michigan’s 12th District for two terms. She worked at General Motors for more than 30 years as a public affairs executive and president of the General Motors Foundation before filling the seat of her late husband, Rep. John Dingell.
-
Tom Williams // Getty Images
– Representative from Kentucky
– Estimated net worth: $7.3 million
Rep. John Yarmuth worked in publishing before entering politics, launching both Louisville Today magazine and a weekly newspaper called the Louisville Eccentric Observer, which he later sold to Time Publishing Company. Yarmuth has made significant contributions to the food and beverage industry. Open Secrets lists Sonny’s Barbeque, a chain barbecue restaurant with more than 100 locations, as one of Yarmuth’s top assets. Yarmuth’s younger brother Robert Yarmuth is CEO of that chain.
-
Chip Somodevilla // Getty Images
– Representative from California
– Estimated net worth: $7.8 million
Jackie Speier’s assets contain a mix of mutual funds, stocks, and real property. A large portion of her wealth comes from rental properties in California.
You may also like: Can you answer these real ‘Jeopardy!’ clues about politics?
-
Bill Clark // Getty Images
– Representative from Illinois
– Estimated net worth: $8.3 million
Bill Foster had a long career as a physicist before entering politics in 2013. In 1975, Foster and his brother Fred co-founded a company called Electronic Theatre Controls, which specializes in theater and entertainment lighting. Most of Foster’s wealth came from selling his share in the company.
-
Kevin Dietsch // Getty Images
– Representative from New Jersey
– Estimated net worth: $9.0 million
Josh Gottheimer’s portfolio includes hundreds of stock options, jointly owned by his spouse. Gottheimer has violated the STOCK Act, most recently by failing to report $15,000 worth of stock exchanges within the window required by the law.
-
Jon Cherry // Getty Images
– Senator from Arizona
– Estimated net worth: $10.4 million
Former naval aviator and astronaut Mark Kelly’s wealth is divvied up among mutual funds, government securities, and stocks. Kelly’s illustrious career has earned him many lucrative speaking engagements over the last few years. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure filings revealed that Kelly has earned more than $2 million from speaking engagements.
-
Chip Somodevilla// Getty Images
– Senator from Oregon
– Estimated net worth: $12.3 million
A large portion of Ron Wyden’s net worth is tied to a diverse stock portfolio and government securities owned by his wife and child. Wyden’s wife Nancy Bass Wyden is the owner of New York City’s Strand Bookstore. Wyden is listed as the owner of more than a dozen different mutual funds.
-
Ian Forsyth // Getty Images
– Senator from Colorado
– Estimated net worth: $13.0 million
John Hickenlooper holds significant stock in dozens of Fortune 500 companies—even more when assets in his spouse’s name are factored in. His portfolio also includes government securities and mutual funds. In May 2020, Hickenlooper was late to disclose stock trades of nearly $1.2 million as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock offloads undertaken by his wife.
You may also like: 50 famous firsts from political history
-
Bill Clark // Getty Images
– Representative from Tennessee
– Estimated net worth: $13.1 million
Jim Cooper’s wealth is concentrated primarily in real property and stocks. Cooper’s assets include ownership interests in retirement communities and apartments, for which he received rent, as well as undeveloped land. Cooper owns stock in Coca-Cola, Comcast, Exxon Mobil, General Electric, Intel, IBM, and Microsoft, among others.
-
Bill Clark // Getty Images
– Representative from Nevada
– Estimated net worth: $15.6 million
Susie Lee’s wealth exists in the form of stocks, mutual funds, and real property, much of which was jointly or solely owned by her now ex-husband Dan Lee. Susie Lee’s net worth includes stock in Full House Resorts, of which Daniel is the CEO.
-
Sergio Flores // Getty Images
– Representative from Texas
– Estimated net worth: $18.3 million
Lloyd Doggett’s wealth is divvied up mostly among mutual funds and real property in Austin, Texas. Doggett also holds stock in Coca-Cola, Home Depot, IBM, and Johnson & Johnson, among others.
-
Paul Morigi // Getty Images
– Representative from California
– Estimated net worth: $21.4 million
Sara Jacobs’ wealth, comprised of stocks, mutual funds, real property, and government securities, is stored primarily in trusts. According to reporting by Business Insider, Jacobs’ trust houses more than $6 million in Qualcomm stock. Qualcomm is a semiconductor company co-founded by Jacobs’ grandfather, Irwin M. Jacobs.
-
Kevin Dietsch // Getty Images
– Representative from Minnesota
– Estimated net worth: $24.8 million
Dean Phillips’ professional resume includes several leadership positions in the food and beverage industry. He co-founded Penny’s Coffee, based in Minnesota, served as CEO of Phillips Distilling Company, and was chairman of Talenti Gelato. Phillips holds a large array of stocks, which in July 2021 were consolidated in a blind trust to avoid a conflict of interest during his time in office.
You may also like: States with the most conservatives
-
Bill Clark // Getty Images
– Representative from North Carolina
– Estimated net worth: $27.2 million
Kathy Manning’s joint assets with her spouse Randall Kaplan are primarily stock holdings in companies including Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Snap, and others. Assets held solely by Kaplan include rental properties, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and additional stocks.
-
Anna Moneymaker // Getty Images
– Representative from Virginia
– Estimated net worth: $29.8 million
Don Beyer’s assets, including a large stock portfolio, real property, and government securities, are jointly owned by his spouse. A significant portion of Beyer’s wealth comes from rent on his commercial properties.
-
The Washington Post // Getty Images
– Representative from Maryland
– Estimated net worth: $32.9 million
David Trone is the co-founder and co-owner of alcohol retail chain Total Wine & More, which is the source of most of his wealth. The remainder of Trone’s financial assets are distributed among mutual funds, stocks, and exchange-traded funds.
-
Bill Clark // Getty Images
– Representative from California
– Estimated net worth: $39.7 million
Many of Scott Peters’ largest assets are in his wife Lynn Gorguze’s name. Gorguze is president and CEO of private equity firm Cameron Holdings. Peters’ other assets include government securities and water bonds.
-
Anna Moneymaker // Getty Images
– Representative from California
– Estimated net worth: $46.1 million
Though Nancy Pelosi’s net worth is close to $50 million, the only assets she shares jointly with her husband Paul Pelosi are one Napa Valley property and a joint Wells Fargo checking account holding less than $15,000. The rest of her wealth is technically owned by her husband and is spread out among stock in companies like Disney, Tesla, Netflix, and Salesforce.
You may also like: States with the most Confederate memorials
-
San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers // Getty Images
– Representative from Washington
– Estimated net worth: $52.2 million
Suzan DelBene had a long and successful business career, including an executive role at Microsoft, before entering politics. DelBene’s wealth is spread out among real estate investments, Microsoft stock, and mutual funds.
-
Anna Moneymaker // Getty Images
– Representative from California
– Estimated net worth: $73.9 million
Doris Matsui’s wealth comes primarily from her husband Roger Sant, founder of the AES Corp., a Fortune 500 holding company. Assets in Matsui’s name are distributed mostly among trusts and exchange-traded funds.
-
Chip Somodevilla // Getty Images
– Senator from Connecticut
– Estimated net worth: $85.2 million
Richard Blumenthal married into his fortune. His wife, Cynthia Malkin, is the daughter of Manhattan real estate magnate Peter Malkin. Blumenthal’s net worth is overwhelmingly tied up in Cynthia Malkin’s assets, which include real estate, hedge funds, and stocks.
-
Pool // Getty Images
– Senator from Virginia
– Estimated net worth: $93.5 million
Much of Mark Warner’s wealth comes from his time working in the private sector. Before entering politics, Warner ran Columbia Capital, a venture-capital firm. Warner also founded Capital Cellular Corp., which was an early investor in Nextel, a wireless service operator.
-
Anna Moneymaker // Getty Images
– Senator from California
– Estimated net worth: $99.5 million
Dianne Feinstein, the wife of Blum Capital founder Richard Blum, is the wealthiest Democrat in congress. While the majority of her wealth comes from her late husband’s business dealings, at least $25 million is held in a blind trust. Feinstein’s stake in Carlton Hotel Properties Inc. is one of her largest assets.
You may also like: History of the NRA
-
Drew Angerer // Getty Images
Political corruption has been in the news for as long as politics have existed. In the U.S. people are often critical of the vast amounts of wealth that politicians, especially those at the federal level, are able to accrue. In 2005, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act was first introduced after an academic study was released that showed that the investments of members of Congress significantly outperformed other investment portfolios.
The STOCK Act was finally passed in 2012 and requires Congressional members and their staff to disclose any changes in investments that occur in their portfolios or the portfolios of their spouses or dependents within 45 days of the change occurring. It was intended to increase transparency and help prevent insider trading—though the legislation also provides a set of rules that are not overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Though the original legislation required that disclosures be posted online, that clause was amended in 2013, allowing online disclosures to occur on a more delayed basis—in theory, to prevent identity theft of elected officials. The legislation has been significantly ignored by many Congress members since, with an investigation by Insider revealing that 182 congressional officials were in violation of the STOCK Act as of December 2021. STOCK Act enforcement is notoriously secretive and difficult to manage, as it falls outside the jurisdiction of the SEC.
Using a database compiled by Insider from congressional disclosure reports, Stacker ranked current Republican politicians in Congress by their total estimated net worth. Estimated values were pulled from documents uploaded by each congressional member’s office for 2020, sometimes handwritten, and reference the low end of the estimated range of value for each asset.
You may also like: Every Supreme Court justice of the past 50 years
-
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call // Getty Images
– Representative from Tennessee
– Estimated net worth: $10.4 million
According to documentation from OpenSecrets, as of 2018, Mark Green was heavily involved in real estate ventures. Much of his net worth is comprised of real estate assets and nine of his 10 liabilities were related to his personal home or a rental property.
-
Anna Moneymaker // Getty Images
– Representative from Wyoming
– Estimated net worth: $10.4 million
Liz Cheney earned the standard $174,000 per year as a member of Congress since she was first elected in 2016. Though she lost her seat during the 2022 midterm elections, she will continue to collect a pension and receive government-funded health care.
-
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc // Getty Images
– Representative from Tennessee
– Estimated net worth: $11.5 million
As of the 2020 Financial Disclosure Report from the House of Representatives, many of Diana Harshbarger’s stocks were in various technology companies. These include Adobe, Alphabet, and Amazon.
-
Jeff Swensen // Getty Images
– Representative from Georgia
– Estimated net worth: $11.5 million
In an email from the Federal Election Commission, the Save America Stop Socialism PAC associated with Marjorie Taylor Greene was notified that there were several financial discrepancies in their reports. These discrepancies make the PAC in violation of federal campaign finance regulations, and it has until Nov. 23, 2022 to respond.
-
Lauren A. Little/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle // Getty Images
-
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc // Getty Images
– Representative from Indiana
– Estimated net worth: $13.9 million
Though the vast majority of Jim Baird’s campaign funding has been out-of-pocket, his third largest contribution sector is agriculture, according to OpenSecrets. Baird has been a member of the House Committee on Agriculture since taking office in 2019.
-
Chip Somodeilla // Getty Images
– Senator from Kentucky
– Estimated net worth: $14.4 million
Mitch McConnell’s wealth skyrocketed in 2008 when he and his wife, Elaine Chao, received a substantial monetary gift from Chao’s father after her mother died. Since then, McConnell and Chao’s combined wealth has multiplied approximately tenfold, to about $30 million.
-
Thomas McKinless/CQ Roll Call // Getty Images
– Representative from Texas
– Estimated net worth: $14.9 million
Van Taylor has approximately $8.5 million in investments in the oil and gas industry based on 2018 financial reports from OpenSecrets. These investments are largely attributed to stock in Exxon Mobil, the second-largest oil and gas company globally.
-
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc // Getty Images
-
Alex Wroblewski // Getty Images
-
Drew Angerer // Getty Images
– Senator from Idaho
– Estimated net worth: $18.9 million
James Risch’s top four largest assets, according to OpenSecrets, are all real estate investments totaling between $12 million and $60 million. The third-largest funding category for Risch’s campaigns is finance, insurance, and real estate.
-
Stefani Reynolds-Pool // Getty Images
– Senator from Tennessee
– Estimated net worth: $19.8 million
Bill Hagerty allegedly violated the STOCK Act when he reported three individual stock trades after the federal disclosure deadline during the summer of 2022. In total, the sales of Signature Bank stock from the trusts he holds for his dependent children are worth between $5,000 and $150,000.
-
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc // Getty Images
-
United States Congress // Wikimedia Commons
– Representative from Tennessee
– Estimated net worth: $23.4 million
While John Rose was a member of the House Financial Services Committee, he sold all of the stock he owned in three banks. At the time, the committee was conducting an investigation into misdeeds committed by Wells Fargo, one of the three banks that Rose had been invested in.
-
Win McNamee // Getty Images
-
Samuel Corum // Getty Images
– Representative from Oklahoma
– Estimated net worth: $26.8 million
Kevin Hern has demonstrated potential conflicts of interest with both the energy sector and the health care sector. He offloaded shares in 12 different oil and gas companies while on a related subcommittee and bought an estimated $300,000 to $615,000 in shares of UnitedHealth Group while sitting on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees Medicare issues.
-
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc // Getty Images
– Representative from California
– Estimated net worth: $39.3 million
Jay Obernolte is a representative on the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. His top campaign donors during his last election season were Esri, a Chicago-based GIS software developer, and Karem Aircraft.
-
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc // Getty Images
– Representative from Michigan
– Estimated net worth: $60.5 million
Peter Meijer, heir to the Meijer supermarket chain, served his first term in the House of Representatives after being elected in 2020. After the 2022 midterms, he will be replaced by Democrat Hillary Scholten.
-
Tasos Katopodis // Getty Images
– Representative from Texas
– Estimated net worth: $67.4 million
Roger Williams holds approximately $18 million in real estate investments, according to OpenSecrets. His personal residence alone was valued at $15 million as of 2018.
-
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call // Getty Images
-
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc // Getty Images
– Senator from Utah
– Estimated net worth: $89.3 million
With the reputation of being a wealthy Wall Street sellout, Mitt Romney did make much of his wealth while working in private equity for Bain & Company in the 1990s. Romney came under fire for this during his 2012 presidential run, but still remains heavily invested in Bain and receives significant retirement benefits.
-
Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket // Getty Images
– Representative from Florida
– Estimated net worth: $113.4 million
In 2012, during his third term as a representative, Vern Buchanan had four investigations against him in progress to reveal some potentially illegal or unethical business practices and campaign finances. Buchanan was not found guilty.
-
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc // Getty Images
– Representative from California
– Estimated net worth: $115.9 million
Earlier in his career as a representative in 2015, Darrell Issa was the richest member of Congress after earning a fortune working in the car alarm industry. Issa is now being investigated by the Department of Justice for potentially being involved with the Fortenberry scandal.
-
Kevin Dietsch // Getty Images
– Representative from Texas
– Estimated net worth: $125.9 million
Though Michael McCaul reports that all of his trading is executed by his wife and children, he’s demonstrated a range of potential conflicts of interest. These include trading IBM and Accenture stocks while sitting on the House Homeland Security Committee, trading UPS shares after a congressional hearing where a USP executive testified, and trading Meta investments during congressional investigations into the company’s handling of misinformation.
-
Joe Raedle // Getty Images
– Senator from Florida
– Estimated net worth: $200.3 million
As the owner of at least 463 assets as of his 2018 disclosures, Rick Scott tops the list of richest Republicans. He is heavily invested in securities and real estate and was involved in a financial feud with Mitch McConnell during the 2022 midterm elections.
You may also like: History of the NRA