Rep. Donald Ritter
Former Representative for Pennsylvania’s 15th District
Ritter was the representative for Pennsylvania’s 15th congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 1979 to 1992.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Ritter is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1992 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 Ritter sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 1987 to Oct 9, 1992. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Ritter was the primary sponsor of 9 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.J.Res. 547 (102nd): Designating May 2, 1993, through May 8, 1993, as “National Walking Week”.
- H.J.Res. 493 (101st): Designating June 14, 1990, as “Baltic Freedom Day”, and for other purposes.
- H.J.Res. 204 (101st): To designate October 1989, as “National Quality Month”.
- H.J.Res. 474 (100th): A joint resolution designating June 14, 1988, as “Baltic Freedom Day”.
- H.J.Res. 629 (98th): A joint resolution to designate the week beginning on May 19, 1985, as “National Tourism Week”.
- H.J.Res. 485 (98th): A joint resolution to designate the week of October 7, 1984 through October 13, 1984 as “National Birds of Prey Conservation Week”.
- H.J.Res. 168 (98th): A joint resolution to designate the week beginning May 27, 1984, as “National Tourism Week”.
Does 9 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
Ritter sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Taxation (24%) Government Operations and Politics (22%) International Affairs (18%) Health (8%) Transportation and Public Works (8%) Commerce (8%) Law (6%) Social Welfare (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Ritter recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 6108 (102nd): Bipartisan Commission on Total Quality Government Act of 1992
- H.R. 5881 (102nd): Federal Program Performance Standards and Goals Act of 1992
- H.J.Res. 547 (102nd): Designating May 2, 1993, through May 8, 1993, as “National Walking Week”.
- H.R. 5526 (102nd): National Commitment to Quality Award Act of 1992
- H.R. 3701 (102nd): National Telecommunications Infrastructure Act of 1991
- H.J.Res. 348 (102nd): To designate the week beginning February 23, 1992, as “National Manufacturing Week”.
- H.R. 3501 (102nd): Federal Communications Commission Engineering Sciences Qualification Act of 1991
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1979 to Oct 1992, Ritter missed 315 of 6,659 roll call votes, which is 4.7%. This is on par with the median of 4.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1992. 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
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- 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
