How many congresspeople have tattoos?

April 29, 2009 5:48 PM

How many members of the United States Congress have tattoos?
posted by boots to law & government (10 comments total)

How many were in the navy?
posted by originalname37 at 5:52 PM on April 29 [2 favorites]

My Grandpa was in the Navy from the late 40s till the late 60's and never got a single tattoo. Just sos ya know. Doesnt guarantee tattooage.
posted by ElmerFishpaw at 5:57 PM on April 29

I presume you mean: "How many members of the United States Congress are known to have tattoos?

Whatever number you get will, I would wager, be lower than the actual.

P.S. I presume you don't mean "How many members. . . have tattoos."
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 6:45 PM on April 29

I seriously doubt any verifiable data exists on this subject, and the congresspeople that are in fact tatted probably don't wish to disclose their status.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:51 PM on April 29

This suggests that Caroline Kennedy would have been the first tattooed female Senator.

This suggests that Rep. Bono Mack has "a predominant color tattoo with the figure of a dragonfly in the gluteus area and many other tattoos in her body." But it also accuses her of attempting to steal the author's identity. I would guess the tattoo makes that harder.
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 6:53 PM on April 29

There is no Congressperson who I know for a fact to be tattooed (while I'm no Congressional observer, I'm a big fan of body art). I hope that there are some, and I think there probably are (as noted above, I think veterans are one likely set of candidates, and Greeks (the fraternity/sorority kind) another), but I wouldn't be surprised either way.
posted by box at 7:28 PM on April 29

I am pretty sure that Jim Webb has at least one. Google appears to confirm this.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 7:42 PM on April 29 [2 favorites]

Other than exhaustively hunting around for individual reports (search for each congressperson's name plus "tattoo", maybe?), you might have to go with a statistical approach. See if you can find statistics regarding how many people in various categories have tattoos (e.g. military or greeks or etc. as mentioned above) and then work the numbers against the congresspeople's known categories.
posted by madmethods at 8:09 PM on April 29

I bet if you sent a form letter to their offices, many would respond.
posted by phrontist at 10:24 PM on April 29

There is at least one.

Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS) has a pe'a.
posted by Slap Factory at 10:07 AM on April 30