Tenure
According to the Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL), a joint partnership between the University of Virginia's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, Duckworth's "Legislative Effectiveness Score" (LES) is "Exceeds Expectations" as a freshman senator in the 115th Congress (2017–18), the 11th highest out of 48 Democratic senators.
GovTrack's Report Card on Duckworth for the 115th Congress found that among Senate freshmen, she ranked first in favorably reporting bills out of committee and "Got influential cosponsors the most often compared to Senate freshmen." GovTrack also found that in the first session of the 116th Congress, Duckworth ranked first in favorably reporting bills out of committee and "Got influential cosponsors the most often compared to Senate sophomores."
During the 115th Congress, Duckworth was credited with saving the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, she led public opposition to a controversial bill, H.R. 620, and led 42 senators in pledging to oppose any effort to pass H.R. 620 through the Senate. The Veterans Service Organization and Paralyzed Veterans of America recognized Duckworth's leadership in defending the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In January 2018, when the federal government shut down after the Senate could not agree on a funding bill, Duckworth responded to President Trump's accusations that the Democrats were putting "unlawful immigrants" ahead of the military: I spent my entire adult life looking out for the well-being, the training, the equipping of the troops for whom I was responsible. Sadly, this is something that the current occupant of the Oval Office does not seem to care to do—and I will not be lectured about what our military needs by a five-deferment draft dodger. And I have a message for Cadet Bone Spurs: If you cared about our military, you'd stop baiting Kim Jong Un into a war that could put 85,000 American troops, and millions of innocent civilians, in danger.
In 2018, Duckworth became the first U.S. senator to give birth while in office. Shortly afterward, the Senate passed Senate Resolution 463, which she introduced on April 12, 2018, by unanimous consent. The resolution changed Senate rules so that a senator may bring a child under one year old to the Senate floor during votes. The day after the rules were changed, Duckworth's daughter became the first baby on the Senate floor.
On April 15, 2020, the Trump administration invited Duckworth to join a bipartisan task force on the reopening of the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Duckworth was publicly critical of Trump's decision to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in September 2020. A devout Catholic, Barrett is a member of a group that considers in vitro fertilization immoral. Duckworth said that Barrett's membership in such an organization was "disqualifying and, frankly, insulting to every parent".
The Center for Effective Lawmaking ranked Duckworth the fifth-most effective Democratic senator in the 116th Congress and the most effective Democratic senator on transportation policy. Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman, co-directors of the Center for Effective Lawmaking, said, "While still in her first term, Senator Tammy Duckworth has risen to the top five among effective Democratic lawmakers in the Senate. She sponsored 77 bills in the 116th Congress, with four of them passing the Republican-controlled Senate and two becoming law."
On January 3, 2021, Duckworth received a vote for Speaker of the House of Representatives from Jared Golden despite not being a member of that legislative body and therefore not a serious candidate.
Duckworth was participating in the certification of the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. In the wake of the attack, she called Trump "a threat to our nation" and called for his immediate removal from office through the invocation of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution or impeachment. Two days later, on January 8, she also called for the resignation of Representative Mary Miller, who had quoted Adolf Hitler during a speech on January 5.
In June 2022, President Biden sent Duckworth to Taiwan, where she held a press conference with Tsai Ing-wen to announce the U.S.–Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade in the wake of fears of angering China by the other partners to the May 2022 Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Her mission was planned in conjunction with the Office of the United States Trade Representative, which leads the Initiative for Washington.
Duckworth is the sponsor of S. 3635, the Public Safety Officer Support Act of 2022, which would provide line of duty death designation to law enforcement and other public safety officers who die as a result of traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and other "silent" injuries. The bill is based on the death of Washington, D.C., police officer Jeffrey Smith in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Smith died of post-concussive syndrome after suffering repeated attacks at the Capitol.
In February 2023, Duckworth was named chair of the Subcommittee on Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. She and Deb Fischer sponsored a bill to improve reporting on complaints from disabled airline passengers. In June 2023, Duckworth criticized Senator Kyrsten Sinema for proposing legislation to limit the amount of time an airplane pilot needs to train for certification.
In November 2023, Duckworth organized a meeting with Israeli defense officials to discuss their strategy in the Gaza war. In January 2024, when asked whether she would support a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, she replied that it "would not help the residents of Gaza nor would it help the security of Israel". In July 2025, a press release from Duckworth explaining her vote against the sale of weapons to Israel cited her "deep frustration with the Netanyahu government's abject failure to address humanitarian needs in Gaza", referring to the Gaza Strip famine.
