Full Biography

Emanuel Cleaver, II is now serving his eleventh term representing Missouri's Fifth Congressional District, the home district of President Harry Truman. He is a member of the House Committee on Financial Services; Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance; member of Subcommittee on Capital Markets; and member of the U.S. Helsinki Commission.

After serving for twelve years on the city council of Missouri's largest municipality, Kansas City, Cleaver was elected as the city's first African American Mayor in 1991.

During his eight-year stint in the Office of the Mayor, Cleaver distinguished himself as an economic development activist and an unapologetic redevelopment craftsman. He and the City Council brought a number of major corporations to the city, including TransAmerica, Harley Davidson, and Citi Corp. Cleaver also led the effort, after a forty-year delay, to build the South Midtown Roadway. Upon completion of this major thoroughfare, he proposed a new name: The Bruce R. Watkins Roadway. Additionally, his municipal stewardship includes the 18th and Vine Redevelopment, a new American Royal, the establishment of a Family Division of the Municipal Court, and the reconstruction and beautification of Brush Creek.

After coming to Washington, Cleaver continued to prioritize housing and economic development, working tirelessly to bring housing investments to Missouri’s Fifth Congressional District and passing multiple bipartisan overhauls of America’s federal housing programs.

In 2009, As a new member on the House Financial Services Committee, Congressman Cleaver was instrumental in national recovery efforts through his work on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, including the creation of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which helped stabilize the housing market in Missouri’s Fifth Congressional District, and the Green Impact Zone, which targeted more than $125 million of federal investment into the urban core in Kansas City, MO.

The Green Impact Zone, consisting of 150 blocks of declining urban core, aimed at making this high crime area the environmentally greenest piece of urban geography in the world. This project included rebuilding Troost Avenue, rehabbing bridges, curbs and sidewalks, home weatherization, smart grid technology in hundreds of homes, and most importantly, hundreds of badly needed jobs for Green Zone residents.

Following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, Congressman Cleaver also worked on the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which included, but was not limited to, the creation of the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau (CFPB), tasked with protecting consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive financial practices, including predatory mortgage lending.     

During the 112th Congress, Cleaver was unanimously elected the 20th chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. During his chairmanship, Rep. Cleaver established a CBC Jobs Tour around the country to help African Americans connect to available jobs as the country continued to recover from the 2008 financial crisis

In 2016, as Ranking Member of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, Cleaver successfully co-authored the largest sweeping reform bill on housing programs in 20 years, the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act, a bipartisan comprehensive housing bill that passed into law with a unanimous vote.

The following Congress, Rep. Cleaver introduced the Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration Act to help low-income families who rely on housing vouchers to move out of poverty and into neighborhoods with better opportunities. The legislation was passed with bipartisan support by Congress and signed into law by President Trump.

In 2018, Congressman Cleaver received the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award Foundation. Past honorees include President Bill Clinton, the late Senator John McCain, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

In the 117th Congress, Cleaver was elected by his colleagues to serve as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development, and Insurance during the COVID-19 eviction and foreclosure crisis. In that capacity, Chairman Cleaver helped lead the effort to pass legislation providing federal funds to address housing and homelessness, including the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which represented the largest single-year investment in preventing and ending homelessness in U.S. history.

Through ARPA and other appropriations, Cleaver helped secure more than $46.6 billion in emergency rental assistance and more than $10 billion for the Homeowner Assistance Fund to ensure that families could remain safely housed. Cleaver also helped secure more than $5 billion in homelessness funds through ARPA which included, for the first time in the nation’s history, Emergency Housing Vouchers for families experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

In 2021, Cleaver’s Stabilizing Rural Homeowners During COVID Act, which provided desperately needed assistance to families living in US Department of Agriculture-supported housing was also signed into law. 

Cleaver also worked with the Biden Administration on key initiatives of the Administration to expand access to fair and affordable housing. In April 2021, Cleaver introduced the Real Estate Valuation Fairness and Improvement Act to address bias in home valuations. Cleaver’s legislation served as the framework for the Biden Administration’s Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE Task Force), the first-ever interagency effort to combat discrimination in the home appraisal process. In 2022, the Task Force released the PAVE Action Plan, and the Biden Administration announced the most wide-ranging actions ever taken to advance equity in the home appraisal process.

In 2022, Cleaver worked with US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Fudge, HUD Acting Secretary Todman, HUD officials, and local officials to stabilize Parade Park Homes and chart a path forward to ensure the health of residents and the community. In 2025, Congressman Cleaver successfully secured $15.5 million in federal grant funding to support the rehabilitation of Parade Park Homes, the oldest Black-owned housing cooperative in the nation, with more than 500 affordable housing units in the heart of the 18th & Vine Jazz District.

Cleaver has received five honorary Doctoral Degrees augmented by a bachelor's degree from Prairie View A&M, and a master's from St. Paul's School of Theology of Kansas City.

Cleaver, a native of Waxahachie, Texas, his wife, their four children, and grandchildren reside in Kansas City.