Benjamin was the representative for Indiana’s 1st congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1977 to 1982.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Benjamin is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1982 positioned according to our liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Benjamin sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1977 to Dec 21, 1982. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Benjamin was the primary sponsor of 4 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 7019 (97th): Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1983
- H.R. 6029 (97th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to acquire by exchange certain lands within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in the State of Indiana.
- H.R. 4209 (97th): Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 1982
- H.R. 7419 (95th): A bill for the relief of Vasilios Georgios Valcanos.
Does 4 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.
We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Benjamin sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (19%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (16%) Transportation and Public Works (16%) Economics and Public Finance (14%) Private Legislation (14%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (8%) Emergency Management (8%) International Affairs (5%)
Recent Bills
Some of Benjamin’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.R. 7019 (97th): Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1983
- H.R. 6505 (97th): Fair Trade in Steel Act of 1982
- H.R. 6029 (97th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to acquire by ...
- H.R. 4578 (97th): A bill for the relief of Bert Van Prooyen.
- H.R. 4209 (97th): Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 1982
- H.R. 2947 (97th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to release restrictions on ...
- H.R. 1224 (97th): A bill for the relief of Steve Tandaric.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1977 to Aug 1982, Benjamin missed 7 of 3,460 roll call votes, which is 0.2%. This is better than the median of 7.8% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Aug 1982. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses and major life events.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- 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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
