The Language of Congress
How Democratic and Republican language in the Congressional Record has changed, from courtesy and bipartisan cooperation to personal disrespect, misconduct allegations, and profanity.
1873-present
The long-run picture
Choose a measure to compare Democratic and Republican floor language across the full digital and historical record. Rates are word-normalized; positive and negative measures remain separate.
Stanford Hein Congressional Record through 2017 and GovInfo CREC from 2017 onward; House and Senate floor language, Democrats and Republicans.
Recent language on the floor
Explore profanity, personal hostility, and misconduct allegations in congressional floor remarks. Member-level results cover 1994–present, while historical party comparisons extend to 1873.
Highest profanity rates
Unquoted matches from a narrow, curated profanity list. “Most-used term” is the most frequent unquoted match, not a claim of preference. Only members with a nonzero rate and enough words are included.
| # | Member | Party | Chamber | Most-used term | Per 100k | Hits | Words |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mr. SCHWEIKERT | R | House | cr*p | 51.1 | 411 | 805,002 |
| 2 | Mr. FROST | D | House | da*n | 41.0 | 12 | 29,296 |
| 3 | Mr. KILDEE | D | House | fu*k | 27.0 | 18 | 66,786 |
| 4 | Mr. BOWMAN | D | House | da*n | 24.1 | 7 | 29,086 |
| 5 | Mr. McGOVERN | D | House | he*l | 23.6 | 232 | 983,558 |
| 6 | Mr. GRAHAM | R | Senate | da*n | 20.5 | 44 | 214,155 |
| 7 | Mr. ROY | R | House | da*n | 15.8 | 87 | 551,587 |
| 8 | Mr. GOMEZ | D | House | he*l | 14.6 | 4 | 27,470 |
Highest personal hostility / disrespect rates
Curated personal attack and disrespect terms. Only members with a nonzero rate and enough words are included.
| # | Member | Party | Chamber | Per 100k | Hits | Words |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mr. JEFFRIES | D | House | 44.7 | 65 | 145,392 |
| 2 | Mr. BROWN of Maryland | D | House | 31.2 | 12 | 38,490 |
| 3 | Mr. WHITEHOUSE | D | Senate | 29.4 | 220 | 747,126 |
| 4 | Mr. GALLEGO | D | Senate | 17.2 | 9 | 52,465 |
| 5 | Mr. OWENS | R | House | 14.7 | 6 | 40,736 |
| 6 | Mr. GOOD of Virginia | R | House | 13.9 | 12 | 86,052 |
| 7 | Mr. YOUNG | R | House | 11.8 | 5 | 42,473 |
| 8 | Mr. SASSE | R | Senate | 11.6 | 12 | 103,486 |
Highest misconduct allegations rates
Curated language alleging corruption, abuse, or other misconduct. Only members with a nonzero rate and enough words are included.
| # | Member | Party | Chamber | Per 100k | Hits | Words |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mr. SCHIFF | D | Senate | 148.4 | 429 | 289,177 |
| 2 | Mrs. DEMINGS | D | House | 120.9 | 65 | 53,775 |
| 3 | Mr. JEFFRIES | D | House | 94.2 | 137 | 145,392 |
| 4 | Ms. GARCIA of Texas | D | House | 80.9 | 69 | 85,274 |
| 5 | Mr. KIM | D | Senate | 73.9 | 44 | 59,574 |
| 6 | Mr. STEUBE | R | House | 71.6 | 18 | 25,135 |
| 7 | Mr. SUBRAMANYAM | D | House | 66.3 | 33 | 49,780 |
| 8 | Mr. LIEU | D | House | 61.7 | 23 | 37,253 |
Methodology and limitations
What is shown
The charts show yearly Democratic and Republican rates for three separate lexical measures, plus the highest-rate members in Last 5 Congresses (115–119). Rates are hits per 100,000 attributed spoken words.
What is examined
The trend panels compare party-wide rates over time. Member panels show the highest nonzero rates among speakers with substantial floor remarks.
Limits
These are descriptive word-pattern counts, not judgments about intent. Misconduct language does not prove misconduct, and quoted profanity is excluded from a speaker's rate.
Last 5 Congresses (115–119) · House + Senate
Who uses each term the most?
Shows the member or tied members with the most accepted, unquoted uses of each grouped term. “Total” includes all attributed members; “each” applies to every member in a tie. Related forms are grouped, while raw matches remain in the downloadable data. Terms are censored; hover over or focus one to reveal it. The conservative codebook favors precision over exhaustiveness.
| Term | Member(s) with most uses | Leader / all uses |
|---|---|---|
| da*n | Mr. McGOVERND | 103/ 748 total |
| he*l | Mr. McGOVERND | 108/ 339 total |
| cr*p | Mr. SCHWEIKERTR | 236/ 336 total |
| a*s | Mr. GRAHAMR | 5/ 32 total |
| pi*s off | Mr. SCHWEIKERTR, Mr. SCHATZD | 5 each/ 30 total |
| fu*k | Mr. KILDEED | 13/ 26 total |
| ba****d | Mr. BARRASSOR, Mr. ROYR, Mr. TILLISR | 3 each/ 21 total |
| sc**w you | Mr. SCHWEIKERTR | 5/ 10 total |
| fr*g | Mr. ROYR | 3/ 9 total |
| bu*****t | Mr. GAETZR, Mr. McGOVERND, Ms. STANSBURYD | 2 each/ 9 total |
| sh*t | Mr. CASTRO of TexasD | 3/ 7 total |
| bi**h | Mr. KILDEED | 2/ 5 total |
| fr**k | Mr. ROYR, Mr. SMITH of WashingtonD, Mr. SCHWEIKERTR, Ms. STANSBURYD | 1 each/ 4 total |
| mo*********r | Mr. KILDEED | 2/ 3 total |
| sh*****e | Mr. KAINED | 2/ 3 total |
| ba***s | Mr. MIKE GARCIA of CaliforniaR, Mr. MERKLEYD, Ms. SLOTKIND | 1 each/ 3 total |
| ef***g | Mr. BLUMENTHALD, Mr. DURBIND, Ms. KLOBUCHARD | 1 each/ 3 total |
| bu***r | Mr. SHIMKUSR | 2/ 2 total |
| as****e | Mr. DAINESR, Mr. RASKIND | 1 each/ 2 total |
| ba****t | Mr. McGOVERND | 1/ 1 total |
| ja****s | Mr. CORNYNR | 1/ 1 total |
Data notes and exclusions
- Speech counts include only remarks attributable to a specific member by Bioguide ID; procedural speech, submitted Extensions of Remarks, and material printed into the Record are excluded. Named-member coverage begins January 25, 1994; the separate long-run party charts use the Stanford Hein corpus back to 1873.
- Profanity uses a conservative, hand-curated list rather than an exhaustive dictionary. Passages marked as quotations are excluded from a member's rate and retained as a separate audit count.
- A member's most-used profanity term is the most frequent accepted, unquoted surface form in the selected period; alphabetical order breaks ties. It does not imply personal preference.
- The Congressional Record is lightly edited rather than verbatim, and source metadata can be corrected after publication.