An accountability file · Florida District 5
The Rutherford
Receipts
Zero town halls. A 55% conservative voting score.
Here are the receipts.
The headline number
Failing: 55%
Heritage Action grades every member. He got a failing 55%.
55%
118th Congress (2023-2024)
Republicans ran the House. He voted with Democrats almost half the time.
68%
Lifetime
His full House career, graded by Heritage Action.
Total raised, 2016-2026
$5,112,567
From PACs
$2,486,754
49% of all his money
Outside spending for him
$583,012
Source: FEC receipts, 2016-2026 cycles · FEC committee C00615294
The clock
Town halls held: zero
Not one, since the day he was sworn in.
Time since his last town hall
—
Days
—
Hours
—
Minutes
—
Seconds
“I am not going to set up an opportunity for a mob to act out in front of media; ain't going do it.”
He has never held a town hall with his constituents.
Counting from January 3, 2017 — the day he took office.
Clock idea and record: Indivisible Jax
Exhibit A
The votes he'd rather you not see
Real roll calls. Tap a line to see why it matters.
Heritage Action opposed
Rutherford voted to send roughly $61 billion more to Ukraine as part of a $95 billion foreign aid package. Donald Trump and the House Freedom Caucus opposed the unpaid-for supplemental. The bill only passed because Democrats supplied the overwhelming majority of the yes votes — 210 Democrats to 101 Republicans, with 112 Republicans voting no.
See the record →
Exhibit C
157 late stock trades
The House ethics office said there was "substantial reason to believe" he broke the STOCK Act.
157
Late stock trades disclosed
$3.5M
Top end of the value involved
5-0
Ethics board vote to investigate
- He started trading in July 2017. He filed his first required report in August 2018 — over a year late.
- That one filing alone held 136 late trades worth up to $3.2 million.
- 134 of them should have triggered a fine, the ethics office found.
- The late filings kept coming through November 2021, after he was already on notice.
- In May 2022 the Office of Congressional Ethics voted 5-0: substantial reason to believe he violated the STOCK Act.
Exhibit B
Follow the money
Who paid. And what it bought.
Who is paying him
$152,200
Taken from these industries. Then he voted their way.
He votes for every war budget.
$114,200
Johnson & Johnson gave him over $10K. He votes with the drug companies.
$22,000
He votes for the banks.
$12,500
He votes to fund detention beds.
$2,500
He votes with Big Tobacco.
$1,000
Sources
- Scores: Heritage Action scorecard.
- Donations: FEC filings for Citizens for John Rutherford, committee C00615294. Totals are across cycles, not single checks.
- Votes: House Clerk roll calls, linked on each entry.
- Find an error? It should be correctable against the linked record.