Rep. Bruce Vento

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Vento is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2000 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 Vento sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1995 to Dec 15, 2000. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Vento was the primary sponsor of 15 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• H.R. 371 (106th): Hmong Veterans’ Naturalization Act of 2000
• H.R. 698 (103rd): Lechuguilla Cave Protection Act of 1993
• H.R. 5126 (102nd): Civil War Battlefield Commemorative Coin Act of 1992
• H.R. 3789 (101st): Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Amendments Act of 1990
• H.R. 2844 (101st): To improve the ability of the Secretary of the Interior to properly manage certain resources of the National Park System.
• H.J.Res. 425 (101st): Designating November 12 through 18, 1989, as “Community Foundation Week”.
• H.R. 4352 (100th): Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Amendments Act of 1988

View All »

Does 15 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 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Vento sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (27%) Law (14%) Social Welfare (12%) Commerce (12%) Labor and Employment (10%) Economics and Public Finance (9%) Finance and Financial Sector (8%) Housing and Community Development (8%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Vento recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.R. 2882 (106th): Internet Consumer Information Protection Act
• H.Res. 169 (106th): Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with respect to democracy, …
• H.R. 1239 (106th): Morris K. Udall Wilderness Act of 1997
• H.R. 1207 (106th): American Natural Resources and Taxpayer Protection Act of 1999
• H.R. 629 (106th): Community Development Financial Institutions Fund Amendments Act of of 1999
• H.R. 566 (106th): Stand Down Authorization Act
• H.R. 371 (106th): Hmong Veterans’ Naturalization Act of 2000

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1977 to Oct 2000, Vento missed 741 of 12,977 roll call votes, which is 5.7%. This is worse than the median of 3.0% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 2000. 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.

Show the numbers...

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
• Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills