de la Garza was the representative for Texas’s 15th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1965 to 1996.
![Photo of Rep. Eligio “Kika” de la Garza [D-TX15, 1965-1996]](/static/legislator-photos/403308-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
de la Garza is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1996 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 de la Garza sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
de la Garza was the primary sponsor of 68 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.R. 4379 (103rd): Farm Credit System Agricultural Export and Risk Management Act
- H.R. 4217 (103rd): Federal Crop Insurance Reform and Department of Agriculture Reauthorization Act of 1994
- H.R. 5183 (103rd): Sheep Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1994
- H.R. 2927 (103rd): Plant Variety Protection Act Amendments of 1994
- H.R. 4581 (103rd): To provide for the imposition of temporary fees in connection with the handling of complaints of violations of the Perishable Agriculture Commodities Act, 1930.
- H.R. 3514 (103rd): To clarify the regulatory oversight exercised by the Rural Electrification Administration with respect to certain electric borrowers.
- H.R. 3123 (103rd): Rural Electrification Loan Restructuring Act of 1993
Does 68 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
de la Garza sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Agriculture and Food (26%) Environmental Protection (16%) Government Operations and Politics (12%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (12%) Economics and Public Finance (11%) Law (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (8%) Commerce (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
de la Garza recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 2163 (104th): Commercial Revitalization Tax Act of 1995
- H.R. 2003 (104th): Community Food Security Act of 1995
- H.R. 1428 (104th): Entitled, “the North American Border Stations Improvements Act”.
- H.R. 1352 (104th): Minor Use Crop Protection Act of 1995
- H.R. 1093 (104th): Entitled “Food Stamp Program Integrity Act of 1995”.
- H.R. 908 (104th): To authorize appropriations for each of fiscal years 1996 through 2000 for …
- H.J.Res. 19 (104th): Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States pertaining to …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1965 to Sep 1996, de la Garza missed 1,777 of 14,976 roll call votes, which is 11.9%. This is much worse than the median of 2.7% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Sep 1996. 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
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
