Rep. Gladys Spellman

Former Representative for Maryland’s 5^th District

Spellman was the representative for Maryland’s 5^th congressional district and was a Democrat. She served from 1975 to 1980.

Bioguide

Photo of Rep. Gladys Spellman [D-MD5, 1975-1980]

(About Ads | Hide These Ads)

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Spellman is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1980 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 Spellman sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 14, 1975 to Dec 13, 1980. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Spellman was the primary sponsor of 12 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

View All »

Does 12 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

Spellman sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (43%) Economics and Public Finance (9%) Housing and Community Development (9%) Finance and Financial Sector (8%) Health (8%) Armed Forces and National Security (8%) Taxation (8%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (6%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Spellman recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1975 to Dec 1980, Spellman missed 443 of 4,089 roll call votes, which is 10.8%. This is on par with the median of 8.6% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 1980. 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...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1975 Jan-Mar	68	1	1.5%	17^th
1975 Apr-Jun	199	1	0.5%	6^th
1975 Jul-Sep	154	4	2.6%	24^th
1975 Oct-Dec	191	4	2.1%	20^th
1976 Jan-Mar	106	5	4.7%	44^th
1976 Apr-Jun	267	30	11.2%	62^nd
1976 Jul-Sep	281	42	14.9%	81^st
1976 Oct-Oct	7	2	28.6%	83^rd
1977 Jan-Mar	100	5	5.0%	46^th
1977 Apr-Jun	273	9	3.3%	25^th
1977 Jul-Sep	198	13	6.6%	56^th
1977 Oct-Dec	135	10	7.4%	54^th
1978 Jan-Mar	150	9	6.0%	40^th
1978 Apr-Jun	300	49	16.3%	79^th
1978 Jul-Sep	308	33	10.7%	65^th
1978 Oct-Oct	76	3	3.9%	34^th
1979 Jan-Mar	63	4	6.3%	58^th
1979 Apr-Jun	221	59	26.7%	94^th
1979 Jul-Sep	198	48	24.2%	93^rd
1979 Oct-Dec	190	24	12.6%	61^st
1980 Jan-Mar	148	8	5.4%	29^th
1980 Apr-Jun	197	14	7.1%	43^rd
1980 Jul-Sep	192	12	6.2%	39^th
1980 Oct-Dec	67	54	80.6%	98^th

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
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills