Rep. David Satterfield

Former Representative for Virginia’s 3^rd District

Satterfield was the representative for Virginia’s 3^rd congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1965 to 1980.

Bioguide

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Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Satterfield is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1980 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 Satterfield sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 14, 1975 to Dec 13, 1980. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Satterfield was the primary sponsor of 14 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 14 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

Satterfield sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Armed Forces and National Security (33%) Health (29%) Taxation (10%) Government Operations and Politics (9%) Labor and Employment (6%) Education (5%) Social Welfare (4%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Satterfield recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1965 to Dec 1980, Satterfield missed 305 of 7,131 roll call votes, which is 4.3%. This is better than the median of 8.6% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 1980. 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
1965 Jan-Mar	28	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Apr-Jun	53	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Jul-Sep	98	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Oct-Oct	22	1	4.5%	22^nd
1966 Jan-Mar	30	0	0.0%	0^th
1966 Apr-Jun	51	2	3.9%	24^th
1966 Jul-Sep	72	5	6.9%	27^th
1966 Oct-Oct	40	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Jan-Mar	31	1	3.2%	51^st
1967 Apr-Jun	57	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Jul-Sep	59	1	1.7%	41^st
1967 Oct-Dec	98	0	0.0%	0^th
1968 Jan-Mar	38	3	7.9%	89^th
1968 Apr-Jun	79	2	2.5%	50^th
1968 Jul-Sep	91	12	13.2%	87^th
1968 Oct-Oct	25	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Jan-Mar	16	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Apr-Jun	28	2	7.1%	40^th
1969 Jul-Sep	45	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Oct-Dec	88	0	0.0%	0^th
1970 Jan-Mar	35	1	2.9%	21^st
1970 Apr-Jun	74	7	9.5%	20^th
1970 Jul-Sep	76	13	17.1%	68^th
1970 Oct-Dec	81	14	17.3%	54^th
1971 Jan-Mar	22	1	4.5%	32^nd
1971 Apr-Jun	90	6	6.7%	22^nd
1971 Jul-Sep	74	1	1.4%	9^th
1971 Oct-Dec	134	3	2.2%	11^th
1972 Jan-Mar	64	2	3.1%	19^th
1972 Apr-Jun	114	7	6.1%	26^th
1972 Jul-Sep	101	1	1.0%	6^th
1972 Oct-Oct	50	3	6.0%	30^th
1973 Jan-Mar	36	7	19.4%	79^th
1973 Apr-Jun	191	14	7.3%	42^nd
1973 Jul-Sep	131	4	3.1%	34^th
1973 Oct-Dec	182	6	3.3%	26^th
1974 Jan-Mar	79	0	0.0%	0^th
1974 Apr-Jun	170	1	0.6%	4^th
1974 Jul-Sep	148	1	0.7%	7^th
1974 Oct-Dec	141	4	2.8%	15^th
1975 Jan-Mar	68	2	2.9%	28^th
1975 Apr-Jun	199	3	1.5%	12^th
1975 Jul-Sep	154	8	5.2%	47^th
1975 Oct-Dec	191	6	3.1%	28^th
1976 Jan-Mar	106	1	0.9%	14^th
1976 Apr-Jun	267	10	3.7%	17^th
1976 Jul-Sep	281	3	1.1%	10^th
1976 Oct-Oct	7	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Jan-Mar	100	1	1.0%	12^th
1977 Apr-Jun	273	5	1.8%	14^th
1977 Jul-Sep	198	1	0.5%	7^th
1977 Oct-Dec	135	1	0.7%	9^th
1978 Jan-Mar	150	26	17.3%	86^th
1978 Apr-Jun	300	6	2.0%	11^th
1978 Jul-Sep	308	11	3.6%	23^rd
1978 Oct-Oct	76	2	2.6%	22^nd
1979 Jan-Mar	63	1	1.6%	29^th
1979 Apr-Jun	221	10	4.5%	29^th
1979 Jul-Sep	198	3	1.5%	10^th
1979 Oct-Dec	190	4	2.1%	11^th
1980 Jan-Mar	148	9	6.1%	34^th
1980 Apr-Jun	197	14	7.1%	43^rd
1980 Jul-Sep	192	30	15.6%	76^th
1980 Oct-Dec	67	23	34.3%	87^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
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills