The 25 Richest Members of Congress 2015
Net Worth: $17.00 million
The Tea Party senator’s largest asset is a money market account at Charles Schwab, worth between $5 million and $25 million, according to Roll Call. He also co-founded Pacur, a plastics manufacturer, with his brother-in-law.
© Gary Cameron / Reuters
Net Worth: $17.54 million
The onetime president of Westbrand Inc. Bank Holding Co., Hoeven has done very well with his investments, including shares in McDonald’s, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Ralph Lauren and John Deere.
© Yuri Gripas / Reuters
Net Worth: $17.98 million
Corker’s wealth is mostly in commercial real estate holdings, including shopping centers and office buildings, as well as in a variety of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
Net Worth: $18.64 million
Kennedy, who joined Congress in 2013, has multiple family trust funds. Roll Call reports that his largest single stock holding appears to be in Exxon Mobil.
© Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters
Net Worth: 19.10 million
McCaskill, a career politician who married a wealthy businessman, sold her $2 million private plane after admitting she hadn’t paid more than $300,000 in state property taxes due on the plane over four years.
© Sarah Conard / Reuters
Net Worth: $19.14 million
A self-made millionaire, Risch started out as a rancher in Idaho and now owns more than 250 acres of land worth around $16 million.
Flickr/SenateEnergy
Net Worth: $23.83 million
Collins lists current investments in eight companies in New York State on his House website’s profile page, including ZeptoMetrix and Volland Electric Corp. The former county executive has been criticized in the past for potential conflicts of interest. He holds seats on the Energy and Commerce Committees.
Flickr/ALPA
Net Worth: $24.73 million
Frelinghuysen, who belongs to a political dynasty that dates back more than two centuries, owes about a third of his wealth to investments in Procter & Gamble.
Flickr/Berkely_Lab
Net Worth: $25.90 million
The freshman MacArthur self-funded the majority of his congressional campaign, spending around $3 million of his own money out of total expenditures of $3.118 million.
Net Worth: $27.45 million
Williams and his wife, Patty, decorate their two homes in Texas with antiques and art worth at least $1 billion, including sports memorabilia, military artifacts and political relics.
Wikimedia Commons
Net Worth: $29.35 million
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are her husband, Paul, are paying mortgages on seven properties, including a 16-acre vineyard in Napa Valley, a multi-million-dollar condo on the D.C. waterfront and a 3,700 square-foot house in San Francisco.
© Elijah Nouvelage / Reuters
Net Worth: $31.02 million
The third richest woman in Congress, DelBene co-founded the startup drugstore.com and spent 12 years at Microsoft before running for Congress.
Flickr/Reserve Officers Association
R-Ohio
Net Worth: $31.62 million
Renacci started out as a certified public accountant before building his fortune through investments in nursing homes, car and motorcycle dealerships, real estate investments, a bar and grill, an arena football team and a minor-league baseball team.
Flickr/Riponsociety
Net Worth: $33.86 million
After working his way through Harvard as a night watchman and janitor, Grayson founded and directed IDT Corp., a telecom/Internet company. The company’s original offices were on the second floor of a funeral home.
© Larry Downing / Reuters
Net Worth: $40.91 million
Before entering Congress, the two-term Democrat brought in a sizeable income working as an environmental attorney, but the majority of his wealth comes from his wife, Lynn Gorguze, who runs the private equity firm Cameron Holdings with her father.
© Mike Blake / Reuters
Net Worth: $45.95 million
Much of Black’s wealth comes from the company her husband David founded, Aegis Sciences Corporation, a forensic chemical and drug-testing laboratory.
© Jason Reed / Reuters
Net Worth: $49.86 million
The five-term Republican built his wealth largely in transportation businesses. He owns two car dealerships, two offshore reinsurance companies, a charter boat business and an aircraft leasing company.
Flickr/House GOP
Net Worth: $52.78 million
Several years ago, Feinstein came under fire for a potential conflict of interest after she allegedly supported the government awarding federal contracts to her billionaire husband’s company, CBRE Group.
© Joshua Roberts / Reuters
Net Worth: $66.99 million
The majority of Blumenthal’s wealth comes from his wife, Cynthia, who is the daughter of New York real estate mogul Peter Malkin. Malkin’s investor group owns the Empire State Building, the Plaza Hotel and other prominent Manhattan landmarks and hotels.
© Michelle McLoughlin / Reuters
Net Worth: $73.52 million
Trott took over his family’s small law office, Trott & Trott, and transformed it into Michigan’s biggest foreclosure law firm and one of the nation’s largest.
submarinesuppliers
Net Worth: $90.11 million
The most successful dotcom millionaire in Congress, Polis has started about a dozen companies, including an online florist, ProFlowers, and an Internet access and web-hosting service, American Information Systems.
Flickr/SLDN
Net Worth: $90.85 million
The wealthiest senator in America, Warner initially blew all his savings on a failed energy startup. He rebuilt his fortune by flipping cellular-phone licenses and then cofounding Columbia Capital, which later became Nextel.
© Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
Net Worth: $91.68 million
The wealthiest Democrat in Congress, Delaney is a self-made millionaire whose father was an electrical worker who never attended college. Delaney created and operated two New York Stock Exchange-listed companies before the age of 40.
Net Worth: $107.61 million
The second-wealthiest member of Congress does not list a single asset in his name. The long list of holdings on his personal financial disclosure report are either under his wife’s name, Linda McCaul, the daughter of Clear Channel Communications founder Lowry Mays, or one of their five children’s.
Flickr/Ed Schipul
Net Worth: $254.65 million
The richest man in Congress for the third year in a row, Issa made his money by creating the widely used Viper car alarm — his own voice is used to scare off would-be car thieves.
© Afolabi Sotunde / Reuters