Commish. Luis Fortuño
Former Resident Commissioner for Puerto Rico’s At-Large District
Fortuño was the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico and was a Republican. He served from 2005 to 2008.
Because Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, and not a state, its representative in the House of Representatives is a delegate, called the resident commissioner, with limited voting privileges — Fortuño can currently vote in committee and in certain votes on the House floor, but not if their vote would be decisive. Delegates have a marginalized role in Congress and their constituents are not represented in Congress in the same manner as most citizens.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Fortuño is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2008 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 Fortuño sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 2003 to Dec 10, 2008. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Fortuño was the primary sponsor of 6 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 4289 (110th): To name the Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Ponce, Puerto Rico, as the “Euripides Rubio Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic”.
- H.R. 1019 (110th): To designate the United States customhouse building located at 31 Gonzalez Clemente Avenue in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, as the “Rafael Martinez Nadal United States Customhouse Building”.
- H.R. 414 (110th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 60 Calle McKinley, West in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, as the “Miguel Angel Garcia Mendez Post …
- H.R. 5026 (109th): To designate the Investigations Building of the Food and Drug Administration located at 466 Fernandez Juncos Avenue in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as the “Andres Toro Building”.
- H.R. 3440 (109th): To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 100 Avenida RL Rodriguez in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, as the “Dr. Jose Celso Barbosa Post …
- H.R. 539 (109th): Caribbean National Forest Act of 2005
Does 6 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
Fortuño sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (28%) Economics and Public Finance (16%) Health (15%) Social Welfare (10%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (9%) International Affairs (9%) Taxation (7%) Law (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Fortuño recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 5864 (110th): Vieques Bioluminescent Bay Conservation Act of 2008
- H.R. 5526 (110th): To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish the Task Force …
- H.R. 5292 (110th): To permit the Secretary of Health and Human Services to directly administer …
- H.R. 5046 (110th): To amend the Military Construction Authorization Act, 1974 to repeal the limitation …
- H.R. 4289 (110th): To name the Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Ponce, Puerto …
- H.Res. 737 (110th): Commemorating October 12, 2007, Spain’s National Day.
- H.R. 3737 (110th): To provide for National Science Foundation and National Aeronautics and Space Administration …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Feb 2007 to Sep 2008, Fortuño missed 166 of 471 roll call votes, which is 35.2%. This is much worse than the median of 3.1% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Sep 2008. 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
- Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills