Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) presents a comparatively clean self-dealing profile: he holds his assets in qualified blind trusts, refuses corporate PAC money, and is a lead sponsor of legislation to ban congressional stock trading, all of which depress his stock-trading and influence scores. His most concrete flag is a 2021 late STOCK Act disclosure, when he reported exercising a Boom Technology stock option roughly four months past the 45-day deadline. His roughly $20 million net worth largely predates his 2020 election (astronaut career, speaking, consulting, and book royalties), so no tenure-based enrichment is scored, and no sourced evidence shows campaign-fund personal use or family/staff revolving-door dealing. Remaining concerns are modest: a slightly above-median missed-vote rate amid heavy fundraising, and defense/aerospace individual-donor concentration that overlaps his committee work but is presented as correlation, not proof.
Public record
In Congress since
2020
Committees
Armed Services Environment and Public Works Joint Economic Committee Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Senate Special Committee on Aging
Missed votes, 119th Congress
5.5% (50 of 915; median member 1.9%)
Campaign money, 2025–26 cycle
$41M raised · 0% from PACs & committees · $24M cash on hand FEC ↗
H.R. 7008 bans new stock purchases by members, spouses and dependents; it doesn't force sales of existing holdings. The Senate vote was on the version paired with the SAVE Act, which is why no Democrat voted yes. Full breakdown →
Disclosed stock trades
No periodic transaction reports on file since 2024. That's the norm: most members don't trade individual stocks, or hold them in blind trusts and diversified funds.
Amounts are the ranges members must report, not exact values. The STOCK Act requires a report within 45 days of a trade; "late" counts days past that deadline, measured to the filing date.
How the score breaks down
Stock self-tradinghousehold / spouse
25% weight
18
Kelly holds his assets in qualified blind trusts and is a lead sponsor of the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act, so he does not actively trade individual stocks. The one notable flag: in 2021 he exercised a stock option in Boom Technology (a firm with a Chinese partner) on April 13 but did not file the required periodic transaction report until August, missing the STOCK Act 45-day deadline. The low score reflects one late-disclosure incident rather than a pattern of active, committee-overlapping trading.
Kelly's net worth is estimated around $20 million (2025), but his wealth largely predates his 2020 Senate election, deriving from his NASA/astronaut career, paid speaking, consulting (Kelly Aerospace Consulting), and book royalties. Disclosures use broad ranges ($7.7M-$33.6M in 2023) held mostly in blind trusts, and no sourced analysis demonstrates net-worth growth beyond salary and normal market returns during his tenure. Pre-office wealth is excluded from scoring, so no enrichment is attributable to his office.
Money → action alignmentcorrelation, not proof of any quid-pro-quo
20% weight
22
CORRELATION, NOT PROOF. Kelly declines corporate PAC money and built one of the largest individual-donor war chests in the Senate (about $79M in 2022). He received donations from individuals tied to defense/aerospace firms such as Raytheon and Maxar, sectors relevant to Arizona and his Armed Services Committee work. No sourced evidence ties specific votes or bills to these contributions; the score reflects industry-donor concentration in a sector overlapping his committee duties, not demonstrated quid pro quo.
No sourced reporting was found alleging that Kelly used campaign or leadership-PAC funds for personal benefit. His self-employment income (about $289,000 from Kelly Aerospace Consulting for speeches) is personal business income reported on disclosures, not campaign spending. Absent documented misuse, no penalty is applied.
Kelly's wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, co-leads the gun-safety advocacy group Giffords, which lobbies on firearms policy, but this is an issue-advocacy nonprofit aligned with their shared cause, not commercial lobbying or contracts tied to Kelly's office. No sourced evidence shows family members or staff converting his office into lobbying business or contracts. No penalty applied absent documented self-dealing.
Kelly missed 93 of 2,514 roll-call votes (3.7%) over his tenure through mid-2026, modestly above the 2.8% median of currently serving senators. He is also a prolific fundraiser (about $79M in the 2022 cycle) and was vetted as a 2024 VP prospect. The slightly elevated absence rate combined with heavy fundraising yields a low score; GovTrack notes absences are often due to medical or life events rather than fundraising, so causation is not established.
Sources behind this score: 3 news reporting · 1 official record · 1 data aggregator · 3 reference database. Score = weighted average of the components that have data; the 3 without sourced evidence are excluded, never counted against the member. Methodology →
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