Rep. Berkley Bedell
Former Representative for Iowa’s 6th District
Bedell was the representative for Iowa’s 6th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1975 to 1986.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Bedell is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1986 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 Bedell sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 5, 1981 to Oct 18, 1986. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Bedell was the primary sponsor of 6 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 4492 (99th): A bill to permit the transfer of certain airport property in Algona, Iowa.
- H.R. 3914 (98th): A bill to require the Secretary of Agriculture to make an earlier announcement of the 1984 crop feed grain program and of the 1985 crop wheat and …
- H.R. 6142 (97th): Surplus Agricultural Commodities Disposal Act of 1982
- H.R. 11713 (95th): Small Business Energy Loan Act
- H.R. 12194 (95th): A bill to create a solar and renewable energy sources loan program within the Small Business Administration.
- H.R. 2575 (94th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to release restrictions on the use of certain property conveyed to the city of Algona, Iowa, for airport purposes.
Does 6 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
Bedell sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Agriculture and Food (25%) Economics and Public Finance (16%) Taxation (12%) Energy (10%) Social Welfare (10%) Government Operations and Politics (9%) Environmental Protection (9%) Armed Forces and National Security (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Bedell recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 5608 (99th): A bill to amend the Reclamation Projects Act of 1939 to require …
- H.R. 4492 (99th): A bill to permit the transfer of certain airport property in Algona, …
- H.R. 4364 (99th): Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Amendments of 1986
- H.R. 4335 (99th): Alcohol Motor Fuel Act of 1986
- H.R. 4267 (99th): A bill to amend the Agricultural Act of 1949 to provide increased …
- H.R. 3805 (99th): A bill to amend the Agricultural Act of 1949 to provide for …
- H.R. 3824 (99th): Motor Fuel Sales Competition Improvement Act of 1985
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1975 to Oct 1986, Bedell missed 404 of 6,695 roll call votes, which is 6.0%. This is on par with the median of 6.2% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1986. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
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
