Heflin was a senator from Alabama and was a Democrat. He served from 1979 to 1996.
![Photo of Sen. Howell Heflin [D-AL, 1979-1996]](/static/legislator-photos/405310-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Heflin is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1996 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 Heflin sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Heflin was the primary sponsor of 20 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 369 (104th): A bill to designate the Federal Courthouse in Decautur, Alabama, as the “Seybourn H. Lynne Federal Courthouse”, and for other purposes.
- S. 2407 (103rd): Judicial Amendments Act of 1994
- S. 340 (103rd): Animal Medicinal Drug Use Clarification Act of 1994
- S. 1732 (103rd): A bill to extend arbitration under the provisions of chapter 44 of title 28, United States Code, and for other purposes.
- S. 1569 (102nd): Federal Courts Administration Act of 1992
- S. 544 (102nd): Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992
- S. 1467 (102nd): A bill to designate the United States Courthouse located at 15 Lee Street in Montgomery, Alabama, as the “Frank M. Johnson, Jr. United States Courthouse.
Does 20 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
Heflin sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Law (23%) Government Operations and Politics (22%) Taxation (14%) Agriculture and Food (9%) Science, Technology, Communications (8%) Health (8%) Finance and Financial Sector (7%) Economics and Public Finance (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Heflin recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 1902 (104th): National Senior Citizen Hall of Fame Act of 1996
- S. 1828 (104th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to issue a certificate …
- S. 1468 (104th): Peanut Program Improvement Act
- S. 1344 (104th): A bill to repeal the requirement relating to specific statutory authorization for …
- S. 1227 (104th): Southern Agricultural Act of 1995
- S. 1049 (104th): A bill to amend the National Trails Systems Act to designate the …
- S. 914 (104th): A bill to delineate acceptable drug testing methods, and for other purposes.
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Feb 1979 to Oct 1996, Heflin missed 215 of 7,052 roll call votes, which is 3.0%. This is on par with the median of 2.6% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1996. 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
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
