Edwin “Jake” Garn, former Senator for Utah

Garn was a senator from Utah and was a Republican. He served from 1974 to 1992.

Photo of Sen. Edwin “Jake” Garn [R-UT, 1974-1992]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Garn is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate 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 Garn sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 1987 to Oct 8, 1992. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Garn was the primary sponsor of 37 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 37 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

Garn sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Public Lands and Natural Resources (21%) Government Operations and Politics (19%) Environmental Protection (19%) Finance and Financial Sector (12%) Water Resources Development (9%) Arts, Culture, Religion (9%) Private Legislation (5%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (5%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Garn recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1975 to Oct 1992, Garn missed 625 of 7,876 roll call votes, which is 7.9%. This is worse than the median of 4.7% among the lifetime records of senators 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.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1975 Jan-Mar	118	0	0.0%	0^th
1975 Apr-Jun	141	3	2.1%	8^th
1975 Jul-Sep	170	6	3.5%	25^th
1975 Oct-Dec	182	34	18.7%	88^th
1976 Jan-Mar	109	10	9.2%	71^st
1976 Apr-Jun	263	31	11.8%	71^st
1976 Jul-Sep	315	44	14.0%	62^nd
1976 Oct-Oct	13	1	7.7%	29^th
1977 Jan-Mar	92	5	5.4%	44^th
1977 Apr-Jun	178	22	12.4%	67^th
1977 Jul-Sep	233	24	10.3%	86^th
1977 Oct-Dec	133	12	9.0%	47^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	6	7.7%	39^th
1978 Apr-Jun	119	20	16.8%	89^th
1978 Jul-Sep	237	3	1.3%	3^rd
1978 Oct-Oct	86	13	15.1%	86^th
1979 Feb-Mar	32	0	0.0%	0^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	4	3.3%	34^th
1979 Jul-Sep	171	10	5.8%	38^th
1979 Oct-Dec	184	8	4.3%	20^th
1980 Jan-Mar	67	4	6.0%	50^th
1980 Apr-Jun	216	13	6.0%	37^th
1980 Jul-Sep	179	6	3.4%	35^th
1980 Oct-Dec	84	20	23.8%	80^th
1981 Jan-Mar	57	0	0.0%	0^th
1981 Apr-Jun	125	0	0.0%	0^th
1981 Jul-Sep	122	11	9.0%	79^th
1981 Oct-Dec	193	10	5.2%	40^th
1982 Feb-Mar	79	0	0.0%	0^th
1982 Apr-Jun	127	0	0.0%	0^th
1982 Jul-Sep	177	1	0.6%	11^th
1982 Oct-Dec	86	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Feb-Mar	54	0	0.0%	0^th
1983 Apr-Jun	122	5	4.1%	53^rd
1983 Jul-Sep	92	1	1.1%	16^th
1983 Oct-Nov	103	0	0.0%	0^th
1984 Jan-Mar	45	1	2.2%	28^th
1984 Apr-Jun	144	0	0.0%	0^th
1984 Jul-Sep	68	3	4.4%	41^st
1984 Oct-Oct	34	0	0.0%	0^th
1985 Jan-Mar	22	17	77.3%	99^th
1985 Apr-Jun	116	9	7.8%	86^th
1985 Jul-Sep	60	7	11.7%	90^th
1985 Oct-Dec	183	7	3.8%	52^nd
1986 Jan-Mar	51	0	0.0%	0^th
1986 Apr-Jun	103	6	5.8%	77^th
1986 Jul-Sep	149	52	34.9%	99^th
1986 Oct-Oct	56	46	82.1%	99^th
1987 Jan-Mar	50	5	10.0%	78^th
1987 Apr-Jun	123	14	11.4%	86^th
1987 Jul-Sep	120	6	5.0%	61^st
1987 Oct-Dec	127	12	9.4%	84^th
1988 Jan-Mar	84	17	20.2%	92^nd
1988 Apr-Jun	137	5	3.6%	46^th
1988 Jul-Sep	127	13	10.2%	80^th
1988 Oct-Oct	31	4	12.9%	65^th
1989 Jan-Mar	26	5	19.2%	97^th
1989 Apr-Jun	77	2	2.6%	67^th
1989 Jul-Sep	118	3	2.5%	74^th
1989 Oct-Nov	91	2	2.2%	72^nd
1990 Jan-Mar	48	0	0.0%	0^th
1990 Apr-Jun	95	3	3.2%	69^th
1990 Jul-Sep	114	12	10.5%	93^rd
1990 Oct-Oct	69	3	4.3%	81^st
1991 Jan-Mar	41	1	2.4%	73^rd
1991 Apr-Jun	74	13	17.6%	97^th
1991 Jul-Sep	96	7	7.3%	95^th
1991 Oct-Nov	69	2	2.9%	64^th
1992 Jan-Mar	61	4	6.6%	84^th
1992 Apr-Jun	74	7	9.5%	86^th
1992 Jul-Sep	117	10	8.5%	85^th
1992 Oct-Oct	18	0	0.0%	0^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
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
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills

Sen. Edwin “Jake” Garn

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