Sen. Fred Thompson

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Thompson 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 Thompson sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 1997 to Nov 20, 2002. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Thompson was the primary sponsor of 7 bills that were enacted:

• S. 1513 (106th): A bill for the relief of Jacqueline Salinas and her children Gabriela Salinas, Alejandro Salinas, and Omar Salinas.
• S. 2712 (106th): Reports Consolidation Act of 2000
• S. 1707 (106th): A bill to amend the Inspector General Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C. App.) to provide that certain designated Federal entities shall be establishments under such Act, and …
• S. 2705 (106th): Presidential Transition Act of 2000
• S. 2071 (105th): A bill to extend a quarterly financial report program administered by the Secretary of Commerce.
• S. 1931 (104th): An Act to provide that the United States Post Office and Courthouse building located at 9 East Broad Street, Cookeville, Tennessee, shall be known and designated as …
• S. 1388 (104th): A bill to designate the United States courthouse located at 800 Market Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, as the “Howard H. Baker, Jr. United States Courthouse”.

View All »

Does 7 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

Thompson sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (25%) Law (17%) Economics and Public Finance (15%) Commerce (12%) Finance and Financial Sector (9%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (7%) Taxation (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Thompson recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 3067 (107th): Government Information Security Reform Act
• S. 2925 (107th): A bill to provide that certain ceiling fans enter duty-free and without …
• S. 2682 (107th): A bill to provide for reliquidation and payment of antidumping duties on …
• S. 2530 (107th): A bill to amend the Inspector General Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C. …
• S. 1811 (107th): Presidential Appointments Improvement Act of 2002
• S. 1780 (107th): Federal Emergency Procurement Flexibility Act of 2001
• S. 1736 (107th): A bill to provide for the reclassification of certain counties for purposes …

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1995 to Nov 2002, Thompson missed 33 of 2,836 roll call votes, which is 1.2%. This is better 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
• Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills