Sen. Gaylord Nelson

Former Senator from Wisconsin

Elected Positions

Dates	Title	Representing
1963-1980	Senator	Wisconsin

Sponsorship Analysis

Nelson was a moderate Democratic leader according to GovTrack's own analysis of bill sponsorship from Nelson’s time serving in the Senate.

Use this chart to compare Nelson to other members of the Senate in the 96^th Congress on leadership and ideology.

This chart is based on principal components analysis for ideology and PageRank for leadership. See analysis methodology.

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Some of Nelson’s most recently sponsored bills include...

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Voting Record

From Jan 1963 to Dec 1980, Nelson missed 539 of 7,802 roll call votes, which is 6.9%. This is better than the median of 8.8% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Dec 1980. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Elligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1963 Jan-Mar	8	1	12.5%	72^nd
1963 Apr-Jun	70	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Jul-Sep	54	4	7.4%	60^th
1963 Oct-Dec	82	2	2.4%	24^th
1964 Jan-Mar	59	2	3.4%	56^th
1964 Apr-Jun	136	0	0.0%	0^th
1964 Jul-Sep	103	1	1.0%	12^th
1964 Oct-Oct	1	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Jan-Mar	32	9	28.1%	79^th
1965 Apr-Jun	105	8	7.6%	25^th
1965 Jul-Sep	106	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Oct-Oct	15	5	33.3%	63^rd
1966 Jan-Mar	27	5	18.5%	68^th
1966 Apr-Jun	53	20	37.7%	92^nd
1966 Jul-Sep	118	2	1.7%	12^th
1966 Oct-Oct	35	6	17.1%	44^th
1967 Jan-Mar	52	4	7.7%	38^th
1967 Apr-Jun	70	5	7.1%	34^th
1967 Jul-Sep	77	11	14.3%	55^th
1967 Oct-Dec	107	14	13.1%	48^th
1968 Jan-Mar	69	9	13.0%	62^nd
1968 Apr-Jun	94	14	14.9%	45^th
1968 Jul-Sep	89	10	11.2%	34^th
1968 Oct-Oct	27	23	85.2%	76^th
1969 Jan-Mar	17	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Apr-Jun	24	2	8.3%	44^th
1969 Jul-Sep	42	2	4.8%	49^th
1969 Oct-Dec	151	10	6.6%	26^th
1970 Jan-Mar	93	5	5.4%	26^th
1970 Apr-Jun	82	27	32.9%	92^nd
1970 Jul-Sep	120	11	9.2%	18^th
1970 Oct-Dec	103	4	3.9%	10^th
1971 Feb-Mar	25	2	8.0%	27^th
1971 Apr-Jun	88	8	9.1%	24^th
1971 Jul-Sep	108	0	0.0%	0^th
1971 Oct-Dec	200	3	1.5%	7^th
1972 Jan-Mar	119	1	0.8%	7^th
1972 Apr-Jun	129	3	2.3%	11^th
1972 Jul-Sep	205	1	0.5%	9^th
1972 Oct-Oct	75	1	1.3%	13^th
1973 Jan-Mar	67	8	11.9%	54^th
1973 Apr-Jun	192	6	3.1%	15^th
1973 Jul-Sep	166	1	0.6%	8^th
1973 Oct-Dec	168	34	20.2%	73^rd
1974 Jan-Mar	93	14	15.1%	72^nd
1974 Apr-Jun	178	8	4.5%	30^th
1974 Jul-Sep	138	8	5.8%	28^th
1974 Oct-Dec	132	4	3.0%	19^th
1975 Jan-Mar	117	1	0.9%	19^th
1975 Apr-Jun	140	4	2.9%	15^th
1975 Jul-Sep	167	18	10.8%	68^th
1975 Oct-Dec	180	7	3.9%	24^th
1976 Jan-Mar	103	15	14.6%	71^st
1976 Apr-Jun	263	12	4.6%	19^th
1976 Jul-Sep	313	18	5.8%	16^th
1976 Oct-Oct	13	4	30.8%	52^nd
1977 Jan-Mar	92	1	1.1%	6^th
1977 Apr-Jun	178	6	3.4%	25^th
1977 Jul-Sep	233	14	6.0%	51^st
1977 Oct-Dec	132	5	3.8%	23^rd
1978 Jan-Mar	78	3	3.8%	18^th
1978 Apr-Jun	118	4	3.4%	31^st
1978 Jul-Sep	235	6	2.6%	13^th
1978 Oct-Oct	85	3	3.5%	26^th
1979 Feb-Mar	32	1	3.1%	38^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	19	15.7%	79^th
1979 Jul-Sep	170	16	9.4%	61^st
1979 Oct-Dec	184	7	3.8%	21^st
1980 Jan-Mar	67	2	3.0%	29^th
1980 Apr-Jun	216	22	10.2%	53^rd
1980 Jul-Sep	178	16	9.0%	51^st
1980 Oct-Dec	83	17	20.5%	66^th

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:

Congressional Biographical Directory for elected positions
United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990 by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole.
Martis’s “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress”, via Keith Poole’s roll call votes data set, for political party affiliation for Members of Congress from 1789 through about year 2000
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
THOMAS, for sponsored bills

Recent Legislative Activity

Elections and Offices

Sen. Gaylord Nelson [D-WI, 1963-1980] leaves office as Senator from Wisconsin

Dec 16, 1980

Elections and Offices

Sen. Gaylord Nelson [D-WI, 1963-1980] takes office as Senator from Wisconsin

Jan 09, 1963