Cranston was a senator from California and was a Democrat. He served from 1969 to 1992.
Alleged misconduct & resolution
In 1989, Sen. Cranston (along with Sens. DeConcini, Glenn, McCain and Riegle) was accused of improperly intervening with federal banking regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, Jr. and his savings and loan business. Because Keating's campaign contributions came so close in time to Cranston's actions, he was reprimanded by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics in front of the full Senate. An odd aspect of Cranston's "punishment" was that he was allowed to rebut his reprimand on the floor of the Senate. To his colleagues' displeasure, he declared that if he was guilty of wrongdoing, then so was the entire Senate. He did not run for re-election in 1992.
1991 | Senate Select Committee on Ethics issued a reprimand on behalf of and in front of the full U.S. Senate, but no formal action was taken by the full Senate |
Nov. 20, 1991 | Senate Select Committee on Ethics published a report on the investigation of Sen. Cranston (Senate Select Comm. on Ethics, Investigation of Sen. Alan Cranston, S. Rep. 102-223, 102d Cong., 1st Sess. (1991)) |
1992 | Did not run for re-election. |
![Photo of Sen. Alan Cranston [D-CA, 1969-1992]](/static/legislator-photos/402990-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Cranston is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1992 positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Cranston sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 1987 to Oct 8, 1992. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Cranston was the primary sponsor of 87 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 775 (102nd): Veterans’ Radiation Exposure Amendments of 1992
- S. 3309 (102nd): A bill to amend the Peace Corps Act to authorize appropriations for the Peace Corps Act to authorize appropriations for the Peace Corps for fiscal year 1993 ...
- S. 2322 (102nd): Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 1992
- S.J.Res. 309 (102nd): A joint resolution designating the week beginning November 8, 1992, as “National Women Veterans Recognition Week”.
- S. 2344 (102nd): Veterans’ Medical Programs Amendments of 1992
- S. 870 (102nd): Golden Gate National Recreation Area Addition Act of 1992
- S. 2378 (102nd): Veterans Rehabilitation and Training bill
Does 87 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
Cranston sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Armed Forces and National Security (41%) Government Operations and Politics (15%) Health (13%) International Affairs (10%) Housing and Community Development (7%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (5%)
Recent Bills
Some of Cranston’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- S. 3346 (102nd): Persian Gulf War Veterans’ Health Status Act
- S. 3309 (102nd): A bill to amend the Peace Corps Act to authorize appropriations for ...
- S. 3301 (102nd): A bill to permit certain disabled former Peace Corps volunteers to enroll ...
- S.Res. 351 (102nd): A resolution to commend the people of Thailand for successfully conducting peaceful ...
- S. 3234 (102nd): A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to provide an ...
- S.Con.Res. 134 (102nd): A resolution to commend the people of the Philippines for successfully conducting ...
- S. 3109 (102nd): Persian Gulf Registry Act
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1969 to Oct 1992, Cranston missed 1,096 of 10,635 roll call votes, which is 10.3%. This is much worse than the median of 4.7% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1992. 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
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- 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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills