Rep. Harold Runnels

Former Representative for New Mexico’s 2^nd District

Runnels was the representative for New Mexico’s 2^nd congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1971 to 1980.

Bioguide

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Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Runnels 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 Runnels sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 14, 1975 to Dec 13, 1980. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

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

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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

Runnels sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Native Americans (28%) Energy (22%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (15%) Private Legislation (10%) Government Operations and Politics (10%) Law (5%) Armed Forces and National Security (5%) Education (5%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Runnels recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1971 to Jul 1980, Runnels missed 1,390 of 5,617 roll call votes, which is 24.7%. This is much worse than the median of 8.6% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Jul 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
1971 Jan-Mar	22	1	4.5%	32^nd
1971 Apr-Jun	90	77	85.6%	99^th
1971 Jul-Sep	74	10	13.5%	68^th
1971 Oct-Dec	134	38	28.4%	88^th
1972 Jan-Mar	64	4	6.2%	34^th
1972 Apr-Jun	114	20	17.5%	68^th
1972 Jul-Sep	101	16	15.8%	71^st
1972 Oct-Oct	50	23	46.0%	90^th
1973 Jan-Mar	36	0	0.0%	0^th
1973 Apr-Jun	191	19	9.9%	62^nd
1973 Jul-Sep	131	23	17.6%	89^th
1973 Oct-Dec	182	54	29.7%	94^th
1974 Jan-Mar	79	2	2.5%	18^th
1974 Apr-Jun	170	45	26.5%	94^th
1974 Jul-Sep	148	8	5.4%	49^th
1974 Oct-Dec	141	43	30.5%	95^th
1975 Jan-Mar	68	14	20.6%	91^st
1975 Apr-Jun	199	9	4.5%	40^th
1975 Jul-Sep	154	8	5.2%	47^th
1975 Oct-Dec	191	25	13.1%	84^th
1976 Jan-Mar	106	29	27.4%	96^th
1976 Apr-Jun	267	40	15.0%	75^th
1976 Jul-Sep	281	27	9.6%	66^th
1976 Oct-Oct	7	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Jan-Mar	100	1	1.0%	12^th
1977 Apr-Jun	273	22	8.1%	54^th
1977 Jul-Sep	198	30	15.2%	84^th
1977 Oct-Dec	135	13	9.6%	64^th
1978 Jan-Mar	150	23	15.3%	80^th
1978 Apr-Jun	300	290	96.7%	100^th
1978 Jul-Sep	308	45	14.6%	78^th
1978 Oct-Oct	76	9	11.8%	75^th
1979 Jan-Mar	63	28	44.4%	98^th
1979 Apr-Jun	221	64	29.0%	95^th
1979 Jul-Sep	198	13	6.6%	49^th
1979 Oct-Dec	190	83	43.7%	97^th
1980 Jan-Mar	148	51	34.5%	93^rd
1980 Apr-Jun	197	123	62.4%	99^th
1980 Jul-Sep	60	60	100.0%	100^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
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills