Butler Derrick Jr., former Representative for South Carolina's 3rd Congressional District

Derrick was the representative for South Carolina’s 3^rd 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 liberal–conservative 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:

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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 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Derrick sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Crime and Law Enforcement (27%) Government Operations and Politics (16%) Finance and Financial Sector (16%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (13%) Environmental Protection (9%) Taxation (7%) Armed Forces and National Security (7%) Social Welfare (7%)

Recent Bills

Some of Derrick’s most recently sponsored bills include...

View All » | View Cosponsors »

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.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1975 Jan-Mar	68	1	1.5%	25^th
1975 Apr-Jun	199	12	6.0%	56^th
1975 Jul-Sep	154	16	10.4%	73^rd
1975 Oct-Dec	191	8	4.2%	44^th
1976 Jan-Mar	106	5	4.7%	46^th
1976 Apr-Jun	267	27	10.1%	56^th
1976 Jul-Sep	281	14	5.0%	43^rd
1976 Oct-Oct	7	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Jan-Mar	100	8	8.0%	64^th
1977 Apr-Jun	273	54	19.8%	91^st
1977 Jul-Sep	198	28	14.1%	82^nd
1977 Oct-Dec	135	12	8.9%	67^th
1978 Jan-Mar	150	11	7.3%	56^th
1978 Apr-Jun	300	20	6.7%	44^th
1978 Jul-Sep	308	28	9.1%	60^th
1978 Oct-Oct	76	7	9.2%	67^th
1979 Jan-Mar	63	5	7.9%	70^th
1979 Apr-Jun	221	56	25.3%	97^th
1979 Jul-Sep	198	9	4.5%	44^th
1979 Oct-Dec	190	9	4.7%	21^st
1980 Jan-Mar	148	19	12.8%	72^nd
1980 Apr-Jun	197	37	18.8%	83^rd
1980 Jul-Sep	192	20	10.4%	66^th
1980 Oct-Dec	67	6	9.0%	50^th
1981 Jan-Mar	15	3	20.0%	83^rd
1981 Apr-Jun	90	9	10.0%	71^st
1981 Jul-Sep	106	11	10.4%	79^th
1981 Oct-Dec	142	17	12.0%	76^th
1982 Feb-Mar	48	19	39.6%	95^th
1982 Apr-Jun	119	15	12.6%	84^th
1982 Jul-Sep	193	20	10.4%	76^th
1982 Oct-Dec	99	11	11.1%	68^th
1983 Jan-Mar	43	2	4.7%	32^nd
1983 Apr-Jun	182	26	14.3%	84^th
1983 Jul-Sep	130	18	13.8%	93^rd
1983 Oct-Nov	143	18	12.6%	84^th
1984 Jan-Mar	53	4	7.5%	60^th
1984 Apr-Jun	223	11	4.9%	43^rd
1984 Jul-Sep	96	7	7.3%	67^th
1984 Oct-Oct	36	3	8.3%	61^st
1985 Jan-Mar	36	9	25.0%	94^th
1985 Apr-Jun	154	17	11.0%	86^th
1985 Jul-Sep	101	6	5.9%	64^th
1985 Oct-Dec	148	2	1.4%	26^th
1986 Jan-Mar	61	8	13.1%	77^th
1986 Apr-Jun	128	5	3.9%	53^rd
1986 Jul-Sep	202	8	4.0%	55^th
1986 Oct-Oct	60	6	10.0%	79^th
1987 Jan-Mar	39	2	5.1%	60^th
1987 Apr-Jun	187	10	5.3%	61^st
1987 Jul-Sep	95	0	0.0%	0^th
1987 Oct-Dec	167	1	0.6%	5^th
1988 Feb-Mar	49	0	0.0%	0^th
1988 Apr-Jun	161	9	5.6%	62^nd
1988 Jul-Sep	152	11	7.2%	70^th
1988 Oct-Oct	89	3	3.4%	57^th
1989 Jan-Mar	14	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Apr-Jun	105	4	3.8%	55^th
1989 Jul-Sep	128	2	1.6%	33^rd
1989 Oct-Nov	121	4	3.3%	44^th
1990 Jan-Mar	60	4	6.7%	78^th
1990 Apr-Jun	150	0	0.0%	0^th
1990 Jul-Sep	183	5	2.7%	50^th
1990 Oct-Oct	143	9	6.3%	72^nd
1991 Jan-Mar	62	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Apr-Jun	139	7	5.0%	68^th
1991 Jul-Sep	81	3	3.7%	49^th
1991 Oct-Nov	162	4	2.5%	52^nd
1992 Jan-Mar	66	0	0.0%	0^th
1992 Apr-Jun	185	4	2.2%	39^th
1992 Jul-Sep	196	1	0.5%	12^th
1992 Oct-Oct	41	0	0.0%	0^th
1993 Jan-Mar	127	1	0.8%	23^rd
1993 Apr-Jun	190	12	6.3%	74^th
1993 Jul-Sep	164	17	10.4%	94^th
1993 Oct-Nov	134	3	2.2%	54^th
1994 Jan-Mar	95	8	8.4%	79^th
1994 Apr-Jun	219	12	5.5%	74^th
1994 Jul-Sep	142	16	11.3%	86^th
1994 Oct-Nov	51	1	2.0%	42^nd

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

Rep. Butler Derrick Jr.

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