Sen. William “Bill” Bradley

Former Senator from New Jersey

Elected Positions

Dates	Title	Representing
1979-1996	Senator	New Jersey

Sponsorship Analysis

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

Use this chart to compare Bradley to other members of the Senate in the 104^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 Bradley’s most recently sponsored bills include...

View All » (including bills from previous years)

Voting Record

From Feb 1979 to Oct 1996, Bradley missed 503 of 7,038 roll call votes, which is 7.1%. This is worse than the median of 2.6% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1996. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Elligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1979 Feb-Mar	32	0	0.0%	0^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	1	0.8%	8^th
1979 Jul-Sep	170	6	3.5%	24^th
1979 Oct-Dec	184	13	7.1%	46^th
1980 Jan-Mar	66	10	15.2%	81^st
1980 Apr-Jun	216	39	18.1%	84^th
1980 Jul-Sep	178	18	10.1%	73^rd
1980 Oct-Dec	84	12	14.3%	65^th
1981 Jan-Mar	57	4	7.0%	77^th
1981 Apr-Jun	124	9	7.3%	86^th
1981 Jul-Sep	122	18	14.8%	95^th
1981 Oct-Dec	192	16	8.3%	70^th
1982 Feb-Mar	77	1	1.3%	27^th
1982 Apr-Jun	127	2	1.6%	30^th
1982 Jul-Sep	176	1	0.6%	16^th
1982 Oct-Dec	86	2	2.3%	55^th
1983 Feb-Mar	54	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Apr-Jun	121	4	3.3%	52^nd
1983 Jul-Sep	92	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Oct-Nov	101	6	5.9%	48^th
1984 Jan-Mar	45	11	24.4%	89^th
1984 Apr-Jun	144	14	9.7%	80^th
1984 Jul-Sep	68	4	5.9%	50^th
1984 Oct-Oct	35	9	25.7%	96^th
1985 Jan-Mar	22	3	13.6%	94^th
1985 Apr-Jun	116	6	5.2%	75^th
1985 Jul-Sep	60	10	16.7%	94^th
1985 Oct-Dec	183	16	8.7%	83^rd
1986 Jan-Mar	51	2	3.9%	56^th
1986 Apr-Jun	103	8	7.8%	85^th
1986 Jul-Sep	146	14	9.6%	96^th
1986 Oct-Oct	56	1	1.8%	62^nd
1987 Jan-Mar	50	5	10.0%	83^rd
1987 Apr-Jun	123	17	13.8%	88^th
1987 Jul-Sep	120	5	4.2%	53^rd
1987 Oct-Dec	127	10	7.9%	80^th
1988 Jan-Mar	84	5	6.0%	37^th
1988 Apr-Jun	136	10	7.4%	83^rd
1988 Jul-Sep	127	14	11.0%	87^th
1988 Oct-Oct	31	4	12.9%	73^rd
1989 Jan-Mar	26	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Apr-Jun	77	5	6.5%	93^rd
1989 Jul-Sep	118	1	0.8%	52^nd
1989 Oct-Nov	91	11	12.1%	93^rd
1990 Jan-Mar	48	0	0.0%	0^th
1990 Apr-Jun	95	0	0.0%	0^th
1990 Jul-Sep	114	1	0.9%	57^th
1990 Oct-Oct	69	2	2.9%	81^st
1991 Jan-Mar	41	3	7.3%	89^th
1991 Apr-Jun	74	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Jul-Sep	96	4	4.2%	86^th
1991 Oct-Nov	69	8	11.6%	91^st
1992 Jan-Mar	61	4	6.6%	88^th
1992 Apr-Jun	74	11	14.9%	95^th
1992 Jul-Sep	117	9	7.7%	92^nd
1992 Oct-Oct	18	0	0.0%	0^th
1993 Feb-Mar	93	1	1.1%	56^th
1993 Apr-Jun	99	6	6.1%	80^th
1993 Jul-Sep	109	7	6.4%	94^th
1993 Oct-Nov	94	2	2.1%	60^th
1994 Jan-Mar	86	11	12.8%	92^nd
1994 Apr-Jun	92	1	1.1%	37^th
1994 Jul-Sep	136	3	2.2%	54^th
1994 Oct-Dec	15	3	20.0%	96^th
1995 Jan-Mar	125	8	6.4%	85^th
1995 Apr-Jun	171	6	3.5%	84^th
1995 Jul-Sep	184	24	13.0%	99^th
1995 Oct-Dec	133	19	14.3%	99^th
1996 Jan-Mar	60	17	28.3%	98^th
1996 Apr-Jun	122	2	1.6%	74^th
1996 Jul-Sep	121	4	3.3%	84^th
1996 Oct-Oct	3	0	0.0%	0^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. William “Bill” Bradley [D-NJ, 1979-1996] leaves office as Senator from New Jersey

Oct 04, 1996

Elections and Offices

Sen. William “Bill” Bradley [D-NJ, 1979-1996] takes office as Senator from New Jersey

Jan 15, 1979