Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): Voting Record, Gun Votes, and 2026 Scorecard

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is the senior senator from Texas, a former Senate Republican whip, and one of the most institutionally reliable votes in his conference. Where a member like Rand Paul or Lisa Murkowski makes headlines by breaking ranks, Cornyn makes his mark by holding the line: over his most recent recorded votes he has not crossed his party once. This scorecard breaks down that record, including the Iran war powers fights of June 2026, a run of judicial confirmations, and the question search engines get asked most about him, his record on guns.

At a Glance

Loyalty and attendance are computed by Congress Vote Tracker over each member's most recent 40 recorded Senate roll calls. See the methodology for how the window works.

Member Profile

How Often Does John Cornyn Vote With His Party?

The short answer: essentially always. Across the 40 most recent Senate roll calls in which Cornyn was eligible to vote, Congress Vote Tracker records zero departures from the Republican majority position, a party-loyalty score of 100%. That is the opposite profile from the independents and swing votes this site tracks elsewhere, and it is exactly what you would expect from a former member of Senate leadership who spent years as the party's chief vote counter.

Cornyn also shows up. He cast all 40 of those votes, a 100% attendance rate over the window. For a senator who travels frequently and chairs and sits on multiple committees, missing no recorded votes across a 40-vote stretch is a notable durability number.

Key Votes: What Cornyn Actually Voted On

The table below shows every one of Cornyn's votes that Congress Vote Tracker currently maps at the member level, most recent first. Each row links to the official Senate roll call record.

The pattern is consistent. On the three judicial cloture motions (Flowers, Westercamp, and Powell), Cornyn voted Yes to advance President Trump's nominees, all on tight margins where every Republican vote mattered. On the two Iran war powers measures, he voted No to keep the decision over U.S. military action with the executive branch rather than force a withdrawal. And on the immigration appeals disapproval resolution, he again voted with the Republican line.

How Did Cornyn Vote on the Iran War Powers Resolutions?

June 2026 brought two attempts to invoke the War Powers Resolution against the administration's Iran operations. On June 24, the Senate rejected the motion to proceed to S.J.Res. 185 by 47 to 50; Cornyn voted No. A day earlier, H.Con.Res. 86 was agreed to 50 to 48 over his objection. Both resolutions would have directed the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran that Congress had not authorized. Cornyn's votes place him firmly with the Senate Republicans who argued the measures were premature and would tie the president's hands.

John Cornyn's Voting Record on Gun Control

This is the search that brings most people to Cornyn's record, and the honest answer requires stepping outside the current window. In the 119th Congress votes that Congress Vote Tracker currently maps, no firearms roll call has come up. Cornyn's defining gun vote is older and far more consequential.

In 2022, after the Uvalde school shooting in his home state, Cornyn served as the lead Republican negotiator of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (S.2938, 117th Congress). The bill was signed into law on June 25, 2022 as Public Law 117-159. It was the most significant federal gun-safety legislation in nearly three decades: it enhanced background checks for buyers under 21, funded state crisis-intervention ("red flag") programs, closed the so-called boyfriend loophole, and put billions toward school safety and mental health. Cornyn negotiated it directly with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), and it drew both Democratic support and a bloc of Republican votes.

That record cuts two ways politically, and voters searching his name should know both. To gun-control advocates, Cornyn is the rare Republican who delivered a bipartisan deal after a mass shooting. To parts of the Republican base, the same law drew a censure from the Texas GOP. Either way, the legislative fact is fixed in the public record: Cornyn wrote and passed the 2022 law. Until a firearms measure reaches a recorded vote in the current Congress, that remains the anchor of his gun record, and this scorecard will add any new firearms roll call as soon as it appears.

The Data Picture [Analysis]

Cornyn is a study in institutional loyalty. His 100% party-loyalty score is not an accident of a quiet stretch; it reflects a governing style built over two decades in Senate leadership, where the job was to hold Republicans together rather than to peel away. On the votes that define the current session, judicial confirmations decided by one or two votes and war powers fights over Iran, he was a dependable yes for the party's nominees and a dependable no against constraining the president.

The tension in his record is the gap between that party-line voting profile and his single most famous act, the 2022 gun law, which was a deliberate break from Republican orthodoxy. It is a reminder that a loyalty score measures behavior over a window, not a career, and that even the most reliable partisans have votes that do not fit the pattern. With his Class II seat on the ballot in November 2026, how Cornyn navigates that tension, between the dealmaker who wrote a gun bill and the whip who never crosses the aisle, is the live question in Texas.