Barrett was the representative for South Carolina’s 3rd congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 2003 to 2010.
![Photo of Rep. James “J. Gresham” Barrett [R-SC3, 2003-2010]](/static/legislator-photos/400016-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Barrett is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2010 positioned according to our liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Barrett sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 2005 to Dec 21, 2010. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Barrett 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
Barrett sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (22%) Economics and Public Finance (18%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (13%) Law (11%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Immigration (9%) Finance and Financial Sector (9%) Health (7%)
Recent Bills
Some of Barrett’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.Res. 1380 (111th): Applauding the State of Arizona for asserting its 10th amendment rights, protecting ...
- H.Res. 1123 (111th): Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives with respect to the ...
- H.R. 4441 (111th): Stop Terrorist Entry Program Act of 2010
- H.R. 3236 (111th): Complete the Fence Act
- H.R. 1814 (111th): Taxpayer Empowerment and Advocacy Act of 2009
- H.R. 751 (111th): To eliminate automatic pay adjustments for Members of Congress.
- H.Res. 98 (111th): Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to require a vote ...
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2003 to Dec 2010, Barrett missed 779 of 5,966 roll call votes, which is 13.1%. This is much worse than the median of 3.1% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2010. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses and major life events.
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
- Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
