Richmond was the representative for New York’s 14th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1975 to 1982.
Alleged misconduct & resolution
In 1982, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct investigated Richmond for evading federal taxes (pleaded guilty to felony charge), two misdemeanors involving a government contract, and misdemeanor possession of marijuana on Aug. 25, 1982. On May. 12, 1982, the committee deferred its investigation at the request of the Department of Justice. On Aug. 25, 1982, he resigned.
| May. 12, 1982 | House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct deferred its investigation at the request of the Department of Justice |
| Aug. 25, 1982 | Resigned. |
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Richmond is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1982 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 Richmond sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1977 to Dec 21, 1982. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Richmond was the primary sponsor of 3 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 1163 (96th): A bill for the relief of Gladys Venicia Cruz-Sanchez.
- H.R. 4057 (96th): Food Stamp Act Amendments of 1979
- H.J.Res. 132 (95th): Joint resolution to authorize a special gold medal to be awarded to Miss Marian Anderson.
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
Richmond sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Arts, Culture, Religion (18%) Agriculture and Food (18%) Taxation (17%) Health (12%) Government Operations and Politics (9%) Labor and Employment (9%) Social Welfare (8%) Animals (7%)
Recent Bills
Some of Richmond’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.R. 6844 (97th): Food Stamp Act Amendments of 1982
- H.R. 5614 (97th): Fair Trade with Japan Act
- H.R. 3729 (97th): A bill to amend the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to require that ...
- H.R. 3109 (97th): Food Stamp and Commodity Distribution Amendments of 1981
- H.R. 3110 (97th): A bill to amend the Older Americans Act of 1965 to establish ...
- H.R. 1042 (97th): A bill to provide an opportunity for taxpayers to make financial contributions, ...
- H.R. 908 (97th): A bill to amend title XVI of the Social Security Act and ...
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1975 to Aug 1982, Richmond missed 797 of 4,733 roll call votes, which is 16.8%. This is much worse than the median of 7.8% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Aug 1982. 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
