Dowdy was the representative for Mississippi’s 4th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1981 to 1988.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Dowdy is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1988 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 Dowdy sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1983 to Oct 22, 1988. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Dowdy was the primary sponsor of 5 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 4457 (100th): A bill to create a national park at Natchez, Mississippi.
- H.R. 1795 (99th): A bill to exempt certain lands in the State of Mississippi from a restriction set forth in the Act of April 21, 1806.
- H.R. 3401 (98th): An act to designate the United States Post Office and Courthouse located at 245 East Capital Street in Jackson, Mississippi as the “James O. Eastland United States …
- H.R. 3402 (98th): An act to designate that hereafter the Federal building at 100 West Capital Street in Jackson, Mississippi, will be known as the Doctor A. H. McCoy Federal …
- H.J.Res. 361 (97th): A joint resolution to grant official recognition to the International Ballet Competition.
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
Dowdy sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Private Legislation (19%) Government Operations and Politics (17%) Armed Forces and National Security (17%) Immigration (11%) Emergency Management (11%) Economics and Public Finance (8%) Education (8%) Labor and Employment (8%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Dowdy recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 4611 (100th): Veterans’ Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 1988
- H.R. 4457 (100th): A bill to create a national park at Natchez, Mississippi.
- H.R. 4213 (100th): Montgomery GI Bill Amendments of 1988
- H.R. 3748 (100th): Targeted Revenue Assistance to Fiscally Distressed Local Governments Act
- H.R. 3460 (100th): Veterans’ Employment and Training Act of 1987
- H.R. 3445 (100th): Natural Gas Consumers Protection Act
- H.R. 3001 (100th): A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, with respect to …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jul 1981 to Oct 1988, Dowdy missed 727 of 3,438 roll call votes, which is 21.1%. This is much worse than the median of 5.5% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1988. 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
