Hightower was the representative for Texas’s 13th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1975 to 1984.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Hightower is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1984 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 Hightower sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 15, 1979 to Oct 11, 1984. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Hightower was the primary sponsor of 1 bill that was enacted:
Does 1 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
Hightower sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Private Legislation (18%) Taxation (18%) Government Operations and Politics (18%) Housing and Community Development (12%) Agriculture and Food (12%) Education (12%) Immigration (12%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Hightower recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 4369 (98th): A bill for the relief of Dorothy Nell Williams.
- H.R. 4315 (98th): A bill for the relief of Louis C. Stas.
- H.R. 3598 (98th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Army, acting through the …
- H.R. 6494 (97th): A bill to provide that the area of Canyon, in the State …
- H.R. 6495 (97th): A bill to provide for the consideration of certain applications for rural …
- H.R. 3962 (97th): A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to restrict …
- H.R. 316 (97th): Limitation on Government Recordkeeping Requirements and Actions Act of 1981
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1975 to Oct 1984, Hightower missed 389 of 5,807 roll call votes, which is 6.7%. This is on par with the median of 7.0% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 1984. 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
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
