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Member of Congress · 119th Congress

Official portrait of Sen. Richard J. Durbin

Richard J. Durbin

DEMOCRAT U.S. Senator · IllinoisSenate 1997–now · House 1983–1997 (IL-20)

Richard Durbin is a Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois, in Congress since 1983, who voted with most Democrats on 93% of the 119th Congress’s yes/no votes and has had 6 bills become law since 2013.

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666Bills & resolutions sponsored113th–119th Congress (excludes amendments)
11Passed a chamberof 568 substantive bills (excludes resolutions and ceremonial bills)
6Became law5 substantive + 1 ceremonial · 113th–119th Congress · 0 this Congress
64Broke with partyof 890 yes/no votes, 119th (7.2%)
25Missed votesof 915 roll calls, 119th (2.7%)
$106.6MPork: own shareFY2024 earmarks, 72 items; shared items split

How we count: “Broke with party” is a yes/no roll call where the member voted against most of their own party on that vote (party as recorded; even splits not counted). “Pork: own share” splits each earmark shared by several members evenly among them.

5 most recent votes

5 most recent bills

Top bills sponsored

Laws first, then bills that passed a chamber, were reported from committee, or drew the most cosponsors.

Committees

Elections Sen. Durbin has won

Sen. Durbin has won 7 U.S. House elections (1982–1994) and 5 U.S. Senate elections (1996, 2002, 2008, 2014, 2020). Of the contested races, margins ran from 0.7 to 39.3 points.

010204060Margin of victory, points (axis starts at 0)1982, IL-20: won by 0.7 points1982IL-201984, IL-20: won by 22.5 points19841986, IL-20: won by 36.2 points19861988, IL-20: won by 37.7 points19881990, IL-20: won by 32.4 points19901992, IL-20: won by 13.0 points19921994, IL-20: won by 9.7 points19941996, IL Senate: won by 15.4 points1996IL Senate2002, IL Senate: won by 22.3 points20022008, IL Senate: won by 39.3 points20082014, IL Senate: won by 10.9 points20142020, IL Senate: won by 16.1 points2020
Democratic winRepublican winseat changed partyunopposed
Elections won12 in the data (1976–2024); losses are not listed
Closest win: 0.7 points1982, IL-20
Won an open seat or took one from the other party2 of 12 elections (open seat or changed party)
Seat history, Illinois’s 20th districtWinners, most recent three: Paul Findley (R) 1976–1980 → Richard J. Durbin (D) 1982–1994 → John Shimkus (R) 1996–2000. Elections shown, not terms; special elections not included.
Seat history, Illinois Senate (class 2)Winners in regular elections, most recent three: Charles Percy (R) 1978 → Paul Simon (D) 1984–1990 → Richard J. Durbin (D) 1996–2020. The seat is next on the ballot in 2026.

Full election history for this seat →

Source: MIT Election Data and Science Lab, U.S. House V15 / U.S. Senate V8 (CC0), retrieved 2026-10-18; winners matched to member records by seat and term. Results run through the 2024 elections; nothing from 2026 is shown until it is certified. A margin is a fact about one election, never a score of how well a member represents anyone, and PORKER does not rank members by it.

How has Illinois done while Sen. Durbin served?

2005 to 2024 in Illinois: typical household income was up 3% after inflation, the share of people below the poverty line was about the same, and the share of workers looking for a job was down 2.7 points.

Typical household income · after inflationIllinois $83.2KU.S. $81.6K
Illinois: $81.2K in 2005 → $83.2K in 2024
Illinois up 3%U.S. up 9%
Share of people below the poverty lineU.S. 12.1%Illinois 11.6%
Illinois: 12.0% in 2005 → 11.6% in 2024
Illinois about the sameU.S. down 1.2 points
Share of workers looking for a jobIllinois 5.1%U.S. 4.6%
Illinois: 7.9% in 2005 → 5.1% in 2024
Illinois down 2.7 pointsU.S. down 2.3 points

Each mini chart has its own scale, fitted to its lines (it does not start at zero), so compare the numbers, not the heights. Oxblood = state, grey = U.S.

While they served, not because of them. This shows what happened in Illinois during Durbin’s time representing it (1997 to now). It does not say what the member did or caused. It is not a score, and PORKER never ranks members on it.

Survey years start at 2005. The yearly estimates for Illinois begin in 2005, so 1997 to 2004 are not shown. No 2020 yearly estimate exists.

See the full 20-year record →Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-year estimates (tables B19013, B17001, B23001) and BLS CPI-U-RS for inflation, retrieved October 18, 2026. “About the same” means the change is inside the 90% margins of error. Who held the seat: Congress.gov member service records, year level.

Local offices

Offices in the district or state, as listed in a public-domain community file. The Washington office is in the Contact section above.

Source: unitedstates/congress-legislators, district-offices file, September 24, 2026 ↗Licence: CC0 (public domain)
Evidence
File
legislators-district-offices-2026-09-24-8d698e92.json, entries D000563-carbondale, D000563-chicago, D000563-rock_island, D000563-springfield (4 offices)
Published at
https://unitedstates.github.io/congress-legislators/legislators-district-offices.json
File date
September 24, 2026 (server “last modified”)
Retrieved by PORKER
October 16, 2026
File SHA-256
8d698e92f8ebae3bdd387bfef239584164160e59d444ba1cbff46f32aa450f59
Licence
CC0 1.0 (public domain)

Read this first. This list is kept up by volunteers and may be out of date. Confirm hours and addresses on the member’s official site, www.durbin.senate.gov.

Federal figures for Illinois

Social Security and VA figures for this member’s state. The full table, sources and notes are on the state page.

2,454,005people receiving Social Security (OASDI) benefits, Dec 2025
Source: SSA, Table 1, April 2026 ↗
Evidence
Publisher
U.S. Social Security Administration, Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, “Congressional Statistics, 2025”
Table / row
Table 1; sheet 'IL - OASDI', row 5
Data as of
December 2025; released April 2026
Licence
CC0 1.0, per the Data.gov record (id US-GOV-SSA-3372; record modified April 27, 2026)
Retrieved by PORKER
October 16, 2026
Full file
cong_stats25.xlsx ↗
File SHA-256
7d31378275e2801fafd143bb96877c3407261b24767b935661ab5f915f2fe87f
244,025people receiving SSI payments, Dec 2025
Source: SSA, Table 2, April 2026 ↗
Evidence
Publisher
U.S. Social Security Administration, Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, “Congressional Statistics, 2025”
Table / row
Table 2; sheet 'IL - SSI', row 6
Data as of
December 2025; released April 2026
Licence
CC0 1.0, per the Data.gov record (id US-GOV-SSA-3372; record modified April 27, 2026)
Retrieved by PORKER
October 16, 2026
Full file
cong_stats25.xlsx ↗
File SHA-256
7d31378275e2801fafd143bb96877c3407261b24767b935661ab5f915f2fe87f
$4,164,435,476VA direct expenditures in the state, FY2025
Source: VA GDX FY2025, State Direct, September 2026 ↗
Evidence
Publisher
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics
File
GDX_FY25.xlsx, sheet 'State Direct Exp', row 17, FIPS 17
Prepared
September 2026 (per the file’s data guide)
Boundaries
119th Congress districts
Licence
U.S. government work; no licence statement found on the VA page
Retrieved by PORKER
October 16, 2026
File SHA-256
1cf95d35c842b0064eacb3055db4441a775163919a3e90d21d30d4966aefaf25

Open the Illinois page, with notes →

Read this first. These describe the state, not the member. They say nothing about what this member did or did not do, and they are never used to rate or rank members.

Official records on bills this member sponsored

119th Congress. What Congress.gov lists for the 139 bills sponsored.

RecordBillsSource
Bills sponsored139Source: Congress.gov member record, PORKER copy of October 26, 2026 ↗ See them →
With a CBO cost estimate listed3See the 3 →
With a committee report listed0None listed
With a Congress.gov note1See the 1 →
Evidence
How counted
Bills where this member is the lead (first-listed) sponsor in the 119th Congress, read from the stored Congress.gov bill records
Fields
cboCostEstimates, committeeReports, constitutionalAuthorityStatementText, notes
PORKER copy refreshed
October 26, 2026 (nightly)

Read this first. These are counts of records Congress.gov lists. Many bills never get a CBO estimate or a report, so a zero is not a mark against a member. We never show this as a score.

Votes on civilian nominations

237 confirmation roll calls this senator was on the roll for, 119th Congress. A tally of what the record shows, not a score.

Yea 28 (12%)Nay 203 (86%)Not voting 6 (3%)
Source: Senate roll call votes, as stored by PORKER ↗
Evidence
What is counted
Senate roll calls in the 119th Congress on the question of confirming a civilian nomination, as recorded on senate.gov. Cloture and procedural votes are not counted.
How it is matched
The vote record names the nomination number; the senator is matched by the Senate member id.
Not voting
Includes absences and any other reason. The record does not say why.

589 of the 617 confirmed civilian nominations show a roll-call vote on their latest-action line; the rest show a voice vote, unanimous consent or another method, with no individual votes. So this is only the roll-call subset. It says nothing about whether any vote was right or wrong.

All confirmed nominationsNominations hub

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Data as of Oct 26, 2026 (member stats) · latest recorded Senate vote Sep 30, 2026 · Sources: Congress.gov, Senate.gov, House Clerk, Appropriations Committee earmark tables. PORKER is non-partisan.