Emanuel Cleaver

Democrat · MO-5 · U.S. House

Bio

Emanuel Cleaver II is an American politician and United Methodist pastor serving as the U.S. representative for Missouri's 5th congressional district since 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 51st mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, from 1991 to 1999, becoming the first Black person to hold that role.

Full bio on Wikipedia →

Record of service

In office: 21.6 years
First took office: 2005 (11 terms)
Seniority: 45 of 437 by time served
Age: 81

District offices

Independence, MO · 816-833-4545
Kansas City, MO · 816-842-4545

FEC filings ↗OpenSecrets ↗GovTrack ↗C-SPAN ↗Ballotpedia ↗Vote Smart ↗House History ↗Facebook ↗Instagram ↗X/Twitter ↗YouTube ↗

Service history, offices and identifiers from unitedstates/congress-legislators (public domain). Years served sum each term rather than subtracting the first start date, so a break in service is not counted as time in office.

Reported net worth

2019

−$2.5M

2020

−$2.4M

2021

▸

−$2.3M

2022

−$2.9M

2023

−$2.6M

2024

−$2.7M

2025

−$2.7M

Most recent filing (2025)

Assets: $402k – $930k
Liabilities: $1.3M – $5.5M
Net worth: −$5.1M – −$320k
Since 2019: −$195k

Largest holdings in the 2025 filing · 8 assets reported

Allianz Life Insurance Company ⇒ 10% Bonus Powerdex Elite Annuity$100k – $250k

United Methodist Personal Investment Plan ⇒ Fixed Income$100k – $250k

Modern Horizons Rollover IRA ⇒ LPL Tactical Income with Moderate Growth$50k – $100k

United Methodist Personal Investment Plan ⇒ Inflation Protection$50k – $100k

United Methodist Personal Investment Plan ⇒ International Equity$50k – $100k

United Methodist Personal Investment Plan ⇒ U.S. Equity$50k – $100k

New England Life Insurance Company ⇒ BlackRock Ultra-Short Term Bond Portfolio$1k – $15k

Virtus Funds ⇒ Virtus Income and Growth Fund CL A (AZNAX)$1k – $15k

Largest first, capped at 40 line items. Each is the asset's reported value bracket, not the income it produced.

From annual financial disclosures, which report every asset and debt as a bracket — so these are ranges, and the figure shown is their midpoint. A primary residence is not a reportable asset while its mortgage is a reportable debt, which pushes some members negative. How this is calculated →

Overall lean (DW-NOMINATE)

LeftCenterRight

Issue profile

Taxes & Fiscal

D+0.58

Healthcare

D+0.75

Immigration & Border

D+0.85

Guns

D+0.99

Abortion & Reproductive Rights

D+0.99

Environment & Energy

D+0.85

Crime & Policing

D+0.51

Defense & Veterans

D+0.01

Economy & Labor

D+0.52

Foreign Policy & Trade

D+0.22

Civil Rights & Social

D+0.86

Education

D+0.70

Government & Democracy

D+0.82

Judicial & Executive Nominations

D+1.00

Each issue runs left ↔ right, scored from how the member voted on bills tagged to that issue (−1…+1). Issues with too few votes are blank. Overall lean uses DW-NOMINATE.

How they score against the parties

Emanuel Cleaver's voting record compared with each party's national platform, issue by issue — the same similarity score used across the site.

Democratic Party

93%Closest

Green Party

87%

Democratic Socialists (DSA)

84%

Communist Party USA

83%

Libertarian Party

53%

Republican Party

32%

On the political map

Emanuel Cleaver (the large ringed dot) among every current member of Congress and the party platforms.

Party platforms:Communist Party USADemocratic Socialists (DSA)Green PartyDemocratic PartyRepublican PartyLibertarian Party

Each small dot is a current member (Dem · Rep); the larger dots are party platforms — click one for its closest members. Economic axis: taxes, healthcare, labor, energy. Social axis: abortion, guns, immigration, civil rights, crime.

Do you vote like Cleaver?

Answer a few questions on the issues and see which members of Congress — and which party — actually line up with you.

Take the 2-minute quiz

Caucuses & committees

Where Cleaversits in Congress's own organization — each group's lean is computed from its members' voting records. Explore them all on the caucuses and committees pages.

Caucuses

Congressional Black Caucusstrongly left · 63 members
Congressional Equality Caucusstrongly left · 153 members

Committees

House Committee on Financial Servicescenter · 53 members
Capital Markets Housing and Insurance (Ranking Member)

Most and least aligned members

Treating Cleaver's 14 issue scores as a vector, cosine similarity measures whether two voting records point the same way (+100%) or in opposite directions (−100%) — the colleagues whose records align most and least with theirs.