The House next meets Dec 1, 2009.

Sen. Richard Shelby [R-AL]
U.S. Senator, Alabama

Track Richard Shelby

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Outside Links

The following external websites may be of interest:

Richard Shelby’s Official Website

Biography from the official Congressional Biographical Directory

Campaign Contributions tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics

State:	Alabama [map]
Party:	Republican
Birthday:	May 6, 1934 / 75 years old

To contact Richard Shelby, visit his official website. (Read our tips for communicating with Congress.) See the Project Vote Smart page for Shelby for more biographical and issue information.

Congressional Service

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by Richard Shelby:

When	Role	Representing
1987-2010	U.S. Senator	Alabama	(Most Recent Term Began in 2005) (was preceeded by Jeremiah Denton)
1979-1986	U.S. Representative	Alabama’s 7^th	(was preceeded by Walter Flowers)

Sponsorship Analysis

Shelby is a moderate Republican according to GovTrack's own analysis of bill sponsorship.

These labels come from the Political Spectrum statistical analysis that we have carried out. The statistical analysis puts members of Congress on a scale based on patterns of bill sponsorship, and is blind to party affiliation and the content of bills. From there, we have somewhat arbitrarily divided the Members of Congress into far-left/right, rank-and-file, and moderate (i.e. centrist). For each party, the most extreme 23% of Members of Congress are labeled far-left or -right. The most centrist 30% (i.e. those closest to the other party) are labeled moderate. The remaining 47% are labeled as rank-and-file.

Shelby is somewhere between a leader and a follower. Shelby sponsors others’ bills and other Members of Congress cosponsor Shelby’s bills. For more, see congressional statistics.

To compute the leader-follower score for Shelby, we make a table that lists all other Members of Congress. Each row has the number bills sponsored by Shelby and cosponsored by the other Member of Congress divided by the number of bills sponsored by the other Member of Congress and cosponsored by Shelby.

This is a measure of who is following who. The higher the number, the more times others are cosponsoring Shelby's bills without Shelby returning the favor. We then take the mean of (the logorithms of) these ratios. Thanks to Joe Barillari for the idea.

Approval Rating

SurveyUSA reports Shelby’s job approval rating at 54% as of 2007-11-20. The average approval rating among senators in states surveyed is 53%. See their survey details for more information.

Voting Record

Richard Shelby missed 138 (2%) of 7073 votes since Jan 25, 1989. The graph to the left shows the number of missed votes over time. Click for a larger chart and a list of recent votes.

Committee Membership

Richard Shelby sits on the following committees:

Ranking Member, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Member, Ex Officio, Subcommittee on Economic Policy

Member, Ex Officio, Subcommittee on Financial Institutions

Member, Ex Officio, Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development

Member, Ex Officio, Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment

Member, Ex Officio, Subcommittee on Security and International Trade and Finance

Member, Senate Committee on Appropriations

Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies

Member, Subcommittee on Defense

Member, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development

Member, Subcommittee on Homeland Security

Member, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies

Member, Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies

Member, Senate Special Committee on Aging

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Richard Shelby has sponsored 113 bills since Jan 14, 1991 of which 75 haven't made it out of committee and 8 were successfully enacted. Shelby has co-sponsored 614 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by Shelby and companion bills identified by CRS that were themselves enacted, but not if they were incorporated into other bills, as that information is not readily available.)

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

	S.Res. 308: A resolution recognizing and supporting the goals and ideals of National Runaway Prevention Month.
	S.J.Res. 20: A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which requires (except during time of war and subject to suspension by Congress) that the total amount of money expended by the United States during any fiscal year not exceed the amount of certain revenue received by the United States during such fiscal year and not exceed 20 per cent of the gross national product of the United States during the previous calendar year.
	S.Res. 183: A resolution celebrating the life and achievements of Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity.
	S. 932: Simplified, Manageable, And Responsible Tax Act

View All... (including bills from previous years)

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.

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