The Hill this week tallied the wealthiest lawmakers in Congress — and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) didn’t top the list.
The most wealthiest lawmaker, though, shares Kerry’s trait of being married to money. Worth $290.5 million is Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), is the son-in-law of Lowry Mays, the founder of Clear Channel Communications.
Kerry came in second with a net worth of $198.8 million — a jump of $5 million in 2011 to keep his position as the wealthiest Democrat in Congress.
Coming in third with $140.6 million is House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who was No. 2 on last year’s list but saw his net worth drop nearly $80 million in 2011. Issa founded Direct Electronics, the nation’s largest manufacturer of car security systems, in 1982.
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), another entrepreneur who started American Information Systems while in college, came in fourth at $91.1 million — a $25 million jump from 2011.
Rounding out the top five is another Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner (Va.). His $85.9 million net worth was buoyed by $9 million in gains in 2011. The venture capitalist was an early investor in Nextel.
Out of the top 50 richest members, 31 are Republican. Thirty-one of the richest come from the House.
I’m less interested in how much they’re worth than I am in where the wealth came from.
Exactly. Issa earned every nickel to his name. Yes, he did build that.
Yeah James, I agree, let’s start with the President and work our way down. He goes first as most senior in position. Then let’s audit them based on years in service. Should be interesting times for ‘Dirty’ Harry Reid and Bella Pelosi.
The Kerry number is somewhat meaningless, since he gigoloed into another billion.
One wonders, along the R/D breakdown, how many have self-made fortunes like Issa and Warner, and how many married or inherited their money like Kerry and assorted Kennedys.
31 & 31 of the Top 50?
Yes, 31 Republicans and 19 others, 31 in the House and 19 in the Senate.
The point of this post is what? Most Republicans support our right to persue avenues that increase our wealth, while rich and wealthy democrats want to have us recieve our means from the government. Who is the hypocrite here? The wealthy dems see us a trivial and ignorant and therefore percieve themselves as our caretaker and want to divi-up what they deem we should have. I would much rather be poor, work my but off, and rely on Gods’ grace to see me through than be at the mercy of the government to share my hard-earned dollar to those who do not work out of laziness. Take this point; how many of us have those lazy family members who keep showing up with their heartbraking story of how we should help them out for the umteenth time? Then finally we say enough is enough. And even though we still feel guilty, we send them on their way. You know what ends up happening is they end up getting a job and supporting themselves.This is the example of this share the wealth thing that republicans ought to tell the people because they can relate very well.
Democrat Mark Warner made his money as a venture capitalist? I want to see the last 20 years of his tax returns to see if he’s cheating. How does he sleep at night? /sarc
Not sure how someone that worked hard and made themselves rich could be a democrat.
As long as you are a Democrat, you can be a filthy rich vulture capitalist (M Warner), or an accused rapist (B Clinton), or a tax dodger (J Kerry), or opened a brothel in your basement (B Frank), or a pathological liar (E Warren), the MSM will protect you, the Occupiers would shill for you.