Sen. John Neely Kennedy
Senator for Louisiana
pronounced jon // KEH-nuh-dee
Kennedy is the junior senator from Louisiana and is a Republican. He has served since Jan 3, 2017. Kennedy is next up for reelection in 2028 and serves until Jan 3, 2029. He is 72 years old.
![Photo of Sen. John Neely Kennedy [R-LA]](/https/www.govtrack.us/static/legislator-photos/412679-200px.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 through their attempts to suppress state-certified election results at both the state and national level.
Kennedy was among the Republican legislators who participated in this. In the days leading up to January 6, 2021’s congressional certification of the election by counting electors, Kennedy announced his intent to object to the inclusion of some states in the count based on debunked accusations of mass fraud or a legal theory which was already rejected. On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, Kennedy 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 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, Arizona, and Wisconsin) and Trump himself faces criminal charges for coordinating the fraudulent slates of electors and other actions. He was also convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records to cover up acts that he believed might have hurt him in the 2016 election. 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.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Kennedy is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the Senate 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 Kennedy has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Aug 1, 2024. See full analysis methodology.
Committee Membership
John Neely Kennedy sits on the following committees:
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Senate Committee on Appropriations
- Energy and Water Development subcommittee Ranking Member
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Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
- Economic Policy subcommittee Ranking Member
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Senate Committee on the Judiciary
- Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights subcommittee Ranking Member
- Senate Committee on the Budget
- Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Enacted Legislation
Kennedy was the primary sponsor of 16 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 2787: 5G SALE Act
- S. 3344 (117th): Protecting the American Taxpayer and Medicare Act
- S. 3304 (117th): Patient Advocate Tracker Act
- S. 1620 (117th): Save the Liberty Theatre Act of 2021
- S. 957 (117th): DUMP Opioids Act
- S. 945 (116th): Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act
- S. 4403 (116th): A bill to amend the Nutria Eradication and Control Act of 2003 to include California in the program, and for other purposes.
Does 16 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
Kennedy sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:
Finance and Financial Sector (26%) Health (18%) Crime and Law Enforcement (14%) International Affairs (10%) Education (10%) Taxation (9%) Immigration (7%) Government Operations and Politics (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Kennedy recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 4772: A bill to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program.
- S.J.Res. 100: A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, …
- S. 4597: FDIC Discrimination Relief Act of 2024
- S. 4417: Service-Disabled Veteran Opportunities in Small Business Act
- S. 4427: DOE and SBA Research Act
- S.Res. 714: A resolution recognizing and supporting individuals born with congenital disabilities or malformations due …
- S. 4353: Quality Loss Adjustment Improvement for Farmers Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2017 to Aug 2024, Kennedy missed 90 of 2,838 roll call votes, which is 3.2%. This is on par with the median of 3.0% among the lifetime records of senators 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
- Office of John Kennedy for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills