Sen. Charles Percy

Former Senator for Illinois

Percy was a senator from Illinois and was a Republican. He served from 1967 to 1984.

Bioguide

Photo of Sen. Charles Percy [R-IL, 1967-1984]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Percy is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1984 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 Percy sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 15, 1979 to Oct 12, 1984. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Percy was the primary sponsor of 21 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 21 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

Percy sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (28%) Economics and Public Finance (22%) Government Operations and Politics (20%) Armed Forces and National Security (8%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (7%) Finance and Financial Sector (7%) Education (5%) Crime and Law Enforcement (4%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Percy recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1967 to Oct 1984, Percy missed 1,459 of 8,504 roll call votes, which is 17.2%. This is much worse than the median of 6.9% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1984. 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...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1967 Jan-Mar	53	10	18.9%	69^th
1967 Apr-Jun	70	17	24.3%	81^st
1967 Jul-Sep	81	20	24.7%	81^st
1967 Oct-Dec	111	29	26.1%	69^th
1968 Jan-Mar	69	29	42.0%	94^th
1968 Apr-Jun	96	15	15.6%	38^th
1968 Jul-Sep	89	38	42.7%	69^th
1968 Oct-Oct	27	5	18.5%	38^th
1969 Jan-Mar	17	3	17.6%	78^th
1969 Apr-Jun	26	3	11.5%	57^th
1969 Jul-Sep	44	5	11.4%	65^th
1969 Oct-Dec	158	32	20.3%	57^th
1970 Jan-Mar	100	32	32.0%	74^th
1970 Apr-Jun	92	28	30.4%	91^st
1970 Jul-Sep	123	39	31.7%	78^th
1970 Oct-Dec	106	34	32.1%	70^th
1971 Feb-Mar	25	4	16.0%	41^st
1971 Apr-Jun	89	11	12.4%	36^th
1971 Jul-Sep	109	31	28.4%	86^th
1971 Oct-Dec	202	46	22.8%	79^th
1972 Jan-Mar	119	24	20.2%	64^th
1972 Apr-Jun	130	14	10.8%	36^th
1972 Jul-Sep	206	59	28.6%	79^th
1972 Oct-Oct	75	3	4.0%	21^st
1973 Jan-Mar	67	13	19.4%	69^th
1973 Apr-Jun	192	18	9.4%	40^th
1973 Jul-Sep	167	24	14.4%	83^rd
1973 Oct-Dec	168	55	32.7%	86^th
1974 Jan-Mar	94	9	9.6%	43^rd
1974 Apr-Jun	179	41	22.9%	84^th
1974 Jul-Sep	138	45	32.6%	92^nd
1974 Oct-Dec	133	45	33.8%	84^th
1975 Jan-Mar	118	24	20.3%	88^th
1975 Apr-Jun	141	14	9.9%	52^nd
1975 Jul-Sep	170	29	17.1%	90^th
1975 Oct-Dec	182	22	12.1%	60^th
1976 Jan-Mar	109	16	14.7%	71^st
1976 Apr-Jun	263	43	16.3%	67^th
1976 Jul-Sep	315	27	8.6%	29^th
1976 Oct-Oct	13	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Jan-Mar	92	5	5.4%	37^th
1977 Apr-Jun	178	18	10.1%	53^rd
1977 Jul-Sep	233	54	23.2%	93^rd
1977 Oct-Dec	133	21	15.8%	79^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	4	5.1%	23^rd
1978 Apr-Jun	119	14	11.8%	72^nd
1978 Jul-Sep	237	50	21.1%	82^nd
1978 Oct-Oct	86	17	19.8%	82^nd
1979 Feb-Mar	32	9	28.1%	96^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	25	20.7%	93^rd
1979 Jul-Sep	171	2	1.2%	11^th
1979 Oct-Dec	184	13	7.1%	47^th
1980 Jan-Mar	67	1	1.5%	17^th
1980 Apr-Jun	216	21	9.7%	57^th
1980 Jul-Sep	179	6	3.4%	31^st
1980 Oct-Dec	84	29	34.5%	95^th
1981 Jan-Mar	57	3	5.3%	74^th
1981 Apr-Jun	125	6	4.8%	66^th
1981 Jul-Sep	122	8	6.6%	67^th
1981 Oct-Dec	193	8	4.1%	35^th
1982 Feb-Mar	79	2	2.5%	54^th
1982 Apr-Jun	127	19	15.0%	89^th
1982 Jul-Sep	177	15	8.5%	81^st
1982 Oct-Dec	86	4	4.7%	66^th
1983 Feb-Mar	54	8	14.8%	89^th
1983 Apr-Jun	122	11	9.0%	77^th
1983 Jul-Sep	92	19	20.7%	91^st
1983 Oct-Nov	103	27	26.2%	91^st
1984 Jan-Mar	45	19	42.2%	94^th
1984 Apr-Jun	144	22	15.3%	85^th
1984 Jul-Sep	68	20	29.4%	96^th
1984 Oct-Oct	34	23	67.6%	99^th

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
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills