Clay was a senator from Kentucky and was a Whig. He served from 1849 to 1853.
He was previously a senator from Kentucky as a Whig from 1837 to 1843; a senator from Kentucky as a Whig from 1831 to 1837; the representative for Kentucky as a Democratic Republican from 1825 to 1827; the representative for Kentucky’s 3rd congressional district as a Democratic Republican from 1823 to 1825; the representative for Kentucky’s 2nd congressional district as a Republican from 1819 to 1821; the representative for Kentucky’s 2nd congressional district as a Republican from 1817 to 1819; the representative for Kentucky’s 2nd congressional district as a Republican from 1815 to 1817; the representative for Kentucky’s 2nd congressional district as a Republican from 1813 to 1815; the representative for Kentucky’s 5th congressional district as a Republican from 1811 to 1813; a senator from Kentucky as a Republican from 1810 to 1811; and a senator from Kentucky as a Republican from 1806 to 1807.
![Photo of Sen. Henry Clay [W-KY, 1849-1853]](/static/legislator-photos/402620-200px.jpeg)
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Nov 1811 to Mar 1825, Clay missed 829 of 881 roll call votes, which is 94.1%. This is much worse than the median of 12.7% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Mar 1825. 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
- 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
