Rep. Claude Pepper
Former Representative for Florida’s 18th District
Pepper was the representative for Florida’s 18th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1983 to 1989.
He was previously the representative for Florida’s 14th congressional district as a Democrat from 1973 to 1982; the representative for Florida’s 11th congressional district as a Democrat from 1967 to 1972; the representative for Florida’s 3rd congressional district as a Democrat from 1963 to 1966; and a senator from Florida as a Democrat from 1936 to 1950.
![Photo of Rep. Claude Pepper [D-FL18, 1983-1989]](/static/legislator-photos/408621-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Pepper is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1990 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 Pepper sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1985 to Oct 27, 1990. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Pepper was the primary sponsor of 23 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.J.Res. 170 (101st): Designating May 1989 as “National Digestive Disease Awareness Month”.
- H.R. 3361 (100th): National Research Institutes Reauthorization Act of 1988
- H.J.Res. 421 (100th): A joint resolution designating May 1988 as “National Digestive Disease Awareness Month”.
- H.R. 390 (100th): A bill to provide that a special gold medal be presented to Mary Lasker for her humanitarian contributions in the areas of medical research and education, urban …
- H.J.Res. 422 (100th): A joint resolution designating May 1-7, 1988, as “National Older Americans Abuse Prevention Week”.
- H.J.Res. 150 (100th): A joint resolution to designate the month of May, 1987 as “National Digestive Diseases Awareness Month”.
- H.J.Res. 54 (100th): A joint resolution to designate the month of May, 1987 as “ National Cancer Institute Month “.
Does 23 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
Pepper sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Health (33%) Social Welfare (30%) International Affairs (8%) Economics and Public Finance (7%) Crime and Law Enforcement (6%) Education (6%) Immigration (5%) Armed Forces and National Security (5%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Pepper recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 2454 (101st): College Opportunity Act of 1989
- H.R. 2263 (101st): Long-Term Home Care Act of 1989
- H.R. 2248 (101st): State and Local Government Alien Assistance Reimbursement Act of 1989
- H.R. 2247 (101st): Social Security Improvement Act of 1989
- H.R. 2219 (101st): National Board and Care Reform Act of 1989
- H.R. 2090 (101st): Fraud Victims Restitution Act of 1989
- H.R. 2093 (101st): To amend the title XVIII of the Social Security Act with respect …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1963 to May 1989, Pepper missed 2,298 of 10,969 roll call votes, which is 20.9%. This is much worse than the median of 4.8% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in May 1989. 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
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
