Sen. Frank Murkowski

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Murkowski is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2002 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 Murkowski sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 1997 to Nov 20, 2002. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Murkowski was the primary sponsor of 45 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 1325 (107th): Adak Island land rights agreement bill
• S. 1879 (107th): Russian River Land Act
• S. 748 (106th): A bill to improve Native hiring and contracting by the Federal Government within the State of Alaska, and for other purposes.
• S. 1367 (106th): A bill to amend the Act which established the Saint-Gaudens Historic Site, in the State of New Hampshire, by modifying the boundary and for other purposes.
• S. 698 (106th): A bill to review the suitability and feasibility of recovering costs of high altitude rescues at Denali National Park and Preserve in the State of Alaska, and …
• S. 501 (106th): Glacier Bay National Park Resource Management Act of 2000
• S. 406 (106th): Alaska Native and American Indian Direct Reimbursement Act of 2000

View All »

Does 45 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

Murkowski sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (18%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (16%) Law (14%) Energy (12%) Economics and Public Finance (11%) Environmental Protection (10%) Commerce (10%) Transportation and Public Works (9%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Murkowski recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 3106 (107th): Denali Transportation System Act
• S. 3104 (107th): A bill to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to …
• S. 3003 (107th): Craig Recreation Land Purchase Act
• S. 2687 (107th): National Defense Rail Connection Act of 2002
• S.Res. 285 (107th): A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate condemning the failure of …
• S. 2615 (107th): Rural Community Hospital Assistance Act of 2002
• S. 2587 (107th): Joint Federal and State Navigable Waters Commission for Alaska Act

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1981 to Nov 2002, Murkowski missed 513 of 7,915 roll call votes, which is 6.5%. This is much worse than the median of 1.8% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Nov 2002. 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...

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
• Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills