Roll Call publishes an report each year listing the richest members of Congress. The charts above show the 15 richest members of Congress in each party -- and as you can see, both parties have some very rich senators and representatives. This should not be surprising since it either takes a wealthy person to run for the Senate or House (or someone with access to some rich friends).
The richest member of Congress by far is Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California). He has three times the wealth of any other member of Congress.
It should come as no surprise that Congress made itself richer this last year -- no doubt to the laws they have passed that favor the rich over everyone else. In 2012, it took a wealth of $6.7 million to make the list of 50 richest members of Congress. But last year that figure rose to $7.4 million. Here are some interesting facts about the 50 richest members of Congress:
All of them are white.
82% of them are men.
18% of them are women.
30 of them are Republicans.
20 of them are Democrats
35 of them are in the House of Representatives.
15 of them are in the Senate.
Roll Call normally just publishes the richest 50 members of Congress -- but this year they published the wealth ranking of every member of Congress. You can go to the Roll Call website to see where your own representative and senators ranked.
NOTE: For my fellow Texans, here are your senators.
452. John Cornyn has a negative net worth of $0.13 million.
144. Ted Cruz has a positive net worth of $1.59 million.
And for my fellow residents of House District 13 in Texas.
466. Mac Thornberry has a negative net worth of $0.19 million.
Cornyn and Thornberry have negative net worths because their debts exceed their assets.
