Patten was the representative for New Jersey’s 15th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1963 to 1980.
Alleged misconduct & resolution
On Oct. 4, 1978, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct investigated Patten for making political contributions with funds provided by another; conducted an inquiry; and dismissed the charges, 8-0.
| Oct. 4, 1978 | House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct conducted inquiry and dismissed the charges, 8-0 |
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Patten 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 liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Patten sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 14, 1975 to Dec 13, 1980. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Patten was the primary sponsor of 3 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 3678 (95th): Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments
- H.R. 11186 (93rd): A bill to extend for 3 years the District of Columbia Medical and Dental Manpower Act of 1970.
- H.R. 9979 (93rd): Budget Control Act
Does 3 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
Patten sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (22%) Health (20%) Social Welfare (17%) International Affairs (9%) Private Legislation (9%) Taxation (8%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (8%) Science, Technology, Communications (6%)
Recent Bills
Some of Patten’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.R. 6798 (96th): Marriage Penalty Offset Tax Credit Act of 1980
- H.R. 6502 (96th): A bill for the relief of Luz Della DeLaune.
- H.R. 6422 (96th): A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to allow beneficiaries ...
- H.J.Res. 241 (96th): A joint resolution authorizing the President to issue a proclamation encouraging Americans ...
- H.R. 2124 (96th): A bill authorizing the removal of a rock ledge and certain other ...
- H.R. 2125 (96th): A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act with ...
- H.R. 2123 (96th): A bill to grant a Federal charter to the National Opportunity Camps.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1963 to Dec 1980, Patten missed 313 of 7,362 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 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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
