Sen. Harry Byrd Jr.

Former Senator from Virginia

Elected Positions

Dates	Title	Representing
1965-1982	Senator	Virginia

Sponsorship Analysis

Byrd was a lonely according to GovTrack's own analysis of bill sponsorship from Byrd’s time serving in the Senate.

Use this chart to compare Byrd to other members of the Senate in the 97^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 Byrd’s most recently sponsored bills include...

View All » (including bills from previous years)

Voting Record

From Jan 1966 to Dec 1982, Byrd missed 343 of 8,013 roll call votes, which is 4.3%. This is better than the median of 6.5% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Dec 1982. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Elligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1966 Jan-Mar	25	3	12.0%	60^th
1966 Apr-Jun	56	9	16.1%	67^th
1966 Jul-Sep	119	4	3.4%	33^rd
1966 Oct-Oct	35	2	5.7%	20^th
1967 Jan-Mar	53	4	7.5%	37^th
1967 Apr-Jun	69	4	5.8%	37^th
1967 Jul-Sep	76	4	5.3%	42^nd
1967 Oct-Dec	108	9	8.3%	53^rd
1968 Jan-Mar	69	2	2.9%	21^st
1968 Apr-Jun	94	4	4.3%	16^th
1968 Jul-Sep	86	3	3.5%	16^th
1968 Oct-Oct	27	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Jan-Mar	17	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Apr-Jun	24	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Jul-Sep	44	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Oct-Dec	155	5	3.2%	4^th
1970 Jan-Mar	99	10	10.1%	42^nd
1970 Apr-Jun	91	5	5.5%	27^th
1970 Jul-Sep	121	18	14.9%	38^th
1970 Oct-Dec	105	19	18.1%	50^th
1971 Feb-Mar	25	2	8.0%	37^th
1971 Apr-Jun	89	6	6.7%	16^th
1971 Jul-Sep	109	3	2.8%	10^th
1971 Oct-Dec	202	9	4.5%	16^th
1972 Jan-Mar	119	3	2.5%	10^th
1972 Apr-Jun	129	0	0.0%	0^th
1972 Jul-Sep	206	9	4.4%	23^rd
1972 Oct-Oct	75	1	1.3%	16^th
1973 Jan-Mar	67	2	3.0%	24^th
1973 Apr-Jun	192	10	5.2%	26^th
1973 Jul-Sep	164	11	6.7%	55^th
1973 Oct-Dec	168	8	4.8%	24^th
1974 Jan-Mar	92	1	1.1%	18^th
1974 Apr-Jun	177	0	0.0%	0^th
1974 Jul-Sep	138	3	2.2%	13^th
1974 Oct-Dec	133	4	3.0%	20^th
1975 Jan-Mar	117	1	0.9%	20^th
1975 Apr-Jun	140	3	2.1%	9^th
1975 Jul-Sep	166	1	0.6%	4^th
1975 Oct-Dec	180	5	2.8%	13^th
1976 Jan-Mar	103	0	0.0%	0^th
1976 Apr-Jun	262	15	5.7%	29^th
1976 Jul-Sep	313	46	14.7%	60^th
1976 Oct-Oct	13	2	15.4%	40^th
1977 Jan-Mar	92	1	1.1%	8^th
1977 Apr-Jun	178	4	2.2%	19^th
1977 Jul-Sep	233	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Oct-Dec	132	0	0.0%	0^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	1	1.3%	0^th
1978 Apr-Jun	118	0	0.0%	0^th
1978 Jul-Sep	235	1	0.4%	5^th
1978 Oct-Oct	85	4	4.7%	32^nd
1979 Feb-Mar	32	0	0.0%	0^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	0	0.0%	0^th
1979 Jul-Sep	170	0	0.0%	0^th
1979 Oct-Dec	183	32	17.5%	86^th
1980 Jan-Mar	67	5	7.5%	54^th
1980 Apr-Jun	216	1	0.5%	6^th
1980 Jul-Sep	178	6	3.4%	29^th
1980 Oct-Dec	84	13	15.5%	66^th
1981 Jan-Mar	57	0	0.0%	0^th
1981 Apr-Jun	124	3	2.4%	38^th
1981 Jul-Sep	122	11	9.0%	72^nd
1981 Oct-Dec	191	5	2.6%	19^th
1982 Feb-Mar	77	0	0.0%	0^th
1982 Apr-Jun	126	2	1.6%	35^th
1982 Jul-Sep	176	2	1.1%	24^th
1982 Oct-Dec	86	2	2.3%	47^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. Harry Byrd [I-VA, 1965-1982] leaves office as Senator from Virginia

Dec 23, 1982

Elections and Offices

Sen. Harry Byrd [I-VA, 1965-1982] takes office as Senator from Virginia

Jan 04, 1965