Sen. Spark Matsunaga

Former Senator from Hawaii

Elected Positions

Dates	Title	Representing
1977-1990	Senator	Hawaii
1971-1976	Representative	Hawaii's 1^st District
1963-1971	Representative	Hawaii's 2^nd District

Sponsorship Analysis

Matsunaga was a rank-and-file Democrat according to GovTrack's own analysis of bill sponsorship from Matsunaga’s time serving in the Senate.

Use this chart to compare Matsunaga to other members of the Senate in the 101^st 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 Matsunaga’s most recently sponsored bills include...

View All » (including bills from previous years)

Voting Record

From Jan 1977 to Apr 1990, Matsunaga missed 526 of 5,725 roll call votes, which is 9.2%. This is worse than the median of 4.5% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Apr 1990. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Elligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1977 Jan-Mar	92	3	3.3%	24^th
1977 Apr-Jun	178	16	9.0%	50^th
1977 Jul-Sep	233	5	2.1%	18^th
1977 Oct-Dec	132	8	6.1%	26^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	11	14.1%	79^th
1978 Apr-Jun	117	5	4.3%	47^th
1978 Jul-Sep	235	16	6.8%	37^th
1978 Oct-Oct	85	9	10.6%	68^th
1979 Feb-Mar	32	10	31.3%	96^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	22	18.2%	91^st
1979 Jul-Sep	170	5	2.9%	18^th
1979 Oct-Dec	183	28	15.3%	85^th
1980 Jan-Mar	67	4	6.0%	51^st
1980 Apr-Jun	216	25	11.6%	70^th
1980 Jul-Sep	178	4	2.2%	25^th
1980 Oct-Dec	84	7	8.3%	43^rd
1981 Jan-Mar	57	2	3.5%	63^rd
1981 Apr-Jun	123	8	6.5%	82^nd
1981 Jul-Sep	122	21	17.2%	99^th
1981 Oct-Dec	192	13	6.8%	61^st
1982 Feb-Mar	77	6	7.8%	79^th
1982 Apr-Jun	127	13	10.2%	78^th
1982 Jul-Sep	176	18	10.2%	88^th
1982 Oct-Dec	84	13	15.5%	90^th
1983 Feb-Mar	54	9	16.7%	91^st
1983 Apr-Jun	121	2	1.7%	26^th
1983 Jul-Sep	92	2	2.2%	31^st
1983 Oct-Nov	101	4	4.0%	36^th
1984 Jan-Mar	44	4	9.1%	74^th
1984 Apr-Jun	144	9	6.3%	53^rd
1984 Jul-Sep	68	3	4.4%	40^th
1984 Oct-Oct	35	1	2.9%	40^th
1985 Jan-Mar	22	1	4.5%	60^th
1985 Apr-Jun	116	2	1.7%	42^nd
1985 Jul-Sep	60	2	3.3%	56^th
1985 Oct-Dec	183	8	4.4%	60^th
1986 Jan-Mar	51	2	3.9%	56^th
1986 Apr-Jun	103	2	1.9%	51^st
1986 Jul-Sep	149	14	9.4%	92^nd
1986 Oct-Oct	56	0	0.0%	0^th
1987 Jan-Mar	50	0	0.0%	0^th
1987 Apr-Jun	123	3	2.4%	40^th
1987 Jul-Sep	120	6	5.0%	63^rd
1987 Oct-Dec	127	5	3.9%	52^nd
1988 Jan-Mar	84	23	27.4%	94^th
1988 Apr-Jun	136	10	7.4%	78^th
1988 Jul-Sep	127	17	13.4%	89^th
1988 Oct-Oct	31	1	3.2%	37^th
1989 Jan-Mar	26	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Apr-Jun	77	2	2.6%	65^th
1989 Jul-Sep	118	51	43.2%	99^th
1989 Oct-Nov	91	32	35.2%	99^th
1990 Jan-Mar	48	33	68.8%	99^th
1990 Apr-Jun	9	6	66.7%	99^th

Primary Sources

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

The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
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. Spark Matsunaga [D-HI, 1977-1990] leaves office as Senator from Hawaii

Oct 28, 1990

Elections and Offices

Sen. Spark Matsunaga [D-HI, 1977-1990] takes office as Senator from Hawaii

Jan 04, 1977

Elections and Offices

Sen. Spark Matsunaga [D-HI, 1977-1990] leaves office as Representative for Hawaii's 1st congressional district

Oct 01, 1976

Elections and Offices

Sen. Spark Matsunaga [D-HI, 1977-1990] takes office as Representative for Hawaii's 1st congressional district

Jan 21, 1971

Elections and Offices

Sen. Spark Matsunaga [D-HI, 1977-1990] leaves office as Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district

Jan 02, 1971