Watson was a senator from West Virginia and was a Democrat. He served from 1911 to 1913.
Alleged misconduct & resolution
Watson faced an allegation of bribery to secure a Senate seat. On Feb. 11, 1913, the Committee on Privileges and Elections unanimously recommended no further action. On Feb. 11, 1913, the Senate adopted the recommendation.
| Feb. 11, 1913 | Committee on Privileges and Elections unanimously recommended no further action. |
| Feb. 11, 1913 | Senate adopted the recommendation |
![Photo of Sen. Clarence Watson [D-WV, 1911-1913]](/static/legislator-photos/411369-200px.jpeg)
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Feb 1911 to Mar 1913, Watson missed 208 of 430 roll call votes, which is 48.4%. This is much worse than the median of 29.5% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Mar 1913. 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
- 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
