Derrick was the representative for South Carolina’s 3rd congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1975 to 1994.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Derrick is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1994 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 Derrick sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1989 to Nov 29, 1994. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Derrick was the primary sponsor of 5 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 2399 (103rd): Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina land Claims Settlement Act of 1993
- H.J.Res. 506 (100th): A joint resolution to express gratitude for law enforcement personnel.
- H.J.Res. 77 (99th): A joint resolution designating the month of November 1985 as “National Alzheimer’s Disease Month”.
- H.R. 2995 (98th): A bill to modify the authority for the Richard B. Russell Dam and Lake project, and for other purposes.
- H.R. 11203 (94th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to establish the Old Ninety Six and Star Fort National Historical Park in the State of South Carolina.
Does 5 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
Derrick sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Crime and Law Enforcement (27%) Finance and Financial Sector (16%) Government Operations and Politics (16%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (13%) Environmental Protection (9%) Energy (7%) International Affairs (7%) Agriculture and Food (7%)
Recent Bills
Some of Derrick’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.Res. 564 (103rd): Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 5110) to approve and implement ...
- H.Res. 563 (103rd): Providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 301) expressing ...
- H.Res. 544 (103rd): Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 3171) to authorize the Secretary ...
- H.Res. 526 (103rd): Waiving points of order against a further conference report to accompany the ...
- H.Res. 522 (103rd): Waiving a requirement of clause 4(b) of rule XI with respect to ...
- H.Res. 517 (103rd): Waiving points of order against the conference report to accompany the amendments ...
- H.Res. 512 (103rd): Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4907) to reform the concept ...
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1975 to Nov 1994, Derrick missed 820 of 10,594 roll call votes, which is 7.7%. This is much worse than the median of 3.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Nov 1994. 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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
