Rep. Cleveland Benedict
Former Representative for West Virginia’s 2nd District
Benedict was the representative for West Virginia’s 2nd congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 1981 to 1982.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Benedict is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1982 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 Benedict sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1977 to Dec 21, 1982. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Benedict was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 5161 (97th): A bill to designate certain lands in the Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia, as wilderness; and to designate management of certain lands for uses other than wilderness.
- H.J.Res. 290 (97th): A joint resolution to authorize and request the President to designate July, 1981 as “National Peach Month,” and for other purposes.
Does 2 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
Benedict recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.Con.Res. 376 (97th): A concurrent resolution recognizing the outstanding service and patriotism exhibited by the …
- H.R. 5161 (97th): A bill to designate certain lands in the Monongahela National Forest, West …
- H.J.Res. 290 (97th): A joint resolution to authorize and request the President to designate July, …
- H.R. 2278 (97th): A bill to place a sign memorializing the New River Gorge Bridge …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1981 to Dec 1982, Benedict missed 69 of 812 roll call votes, which is 8.5%. This is on par with the median of 7.8% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 1982. 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
