Kleczka was the representative for Wisconsin’s 4th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1983 to 2004.
![Photo of Rep. Gerald “Jerry” Kleczka [D-WI4, 1983-2004]](/static/legislator-photos/400223-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Kleczka is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2004 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 Kleczka sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 1999 to Dec 7, 2004. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Kleczka was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.J.Res. 604 (101st): Designating October 1990 as “Polish American Heritage Month”.
- H.J.Res. 580 (99th): A joint resolution to designate the week beginning September 7, 1986 as “National Freedom of Information Act Awareness Week”.
Does 2 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
Kleczka sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Commerce (17%) Government Operations and Politics (16%) Finance and Financial Sector (14%) Law (11%) Health (11%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Social Welfare (10%) Transportation and Public Works (9%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Kleczka recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 4673 (108th): Opt Out of ID Chips Act
- H.R. 3236 (108th): Permanently Inhibit Gougers Act
- H.R. 2759 (108th): Bruce Vento Hmong Veterans’ Naturalization Act of 2003
- H.Res. 296 (108th): Recognizing the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, …
- H.R. 2453 (108th): Medicare Substitute Adult Day Care Services Act of 2003
- H.R. 2017 (108th): Sunshine in Iraq Reconstruction Act of 2003
- H.R. 1931 (108th): Personal Information Privacy Act of 2003
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Apr 1984 to Dec 2004, Kleczka missed 515 of 11,088 roll call votes, which is 4.6%. This is worse than the median of 2.9% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2004. 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
- Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
