Rep. James Bilbray

Former Representative for Nevada’s 1^st District

Bilbray was the representative for Nevada’s 1^st congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1987 to 1994.

Bioguide

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Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Bilbray is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1994 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 Bilbray sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1989 to Nov 29, 1994. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Bilbray was the primary sponsor of 5 bills that were enacted:

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Does 5 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

Bilbray sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (19%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (19%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (15%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Social Welfare (11%) Government Operations and Politics (11%) Arts, Culture, Religion (7%) Crime and Law Enforcement (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Bilbray recently introduced the following legislation:

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1987 to Nov 1994, Bilbray missed 82 of 3,897 roll call votes, which is 2.1%. This is better than the median of 3.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Nov 1994. 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
1987 Jan-Mar	39	1	2.6%	38^th
1987 Apr-Jun	187	3	1.6%	27^th
1987 Jul-Sep	95	1	1.1%	23^rd
1987 Oct-Dec	167	10	6.0%	50^th
1988 Feb-Mar	49	4	8.2%	69^th
1988 Apr-Jun	161	10	6.2%	66^th
1988 Jul-Sep	152	1	0.7%	8^th
1988 Oct-Oct	89	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Jan-Mar	14	1	7.1%	57^th
1989 Apr-Jun	105	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Jul-Sep	128	4	3.1%	56^th
1989 Oct-Nov	121	4	3.3%	44^th
1990 Jan-Mar	60	2	3.3%	56^th
1990 Apr-Jun	150	0	0.0%	0^th
1990 Jul-Sep	183	3	1.6%	38^th
1990 Oct-Oct	143	4	2.8%	46^th
1991 Jan-Mar	62	3	4.8%	66^th
1991 Apr-Jun	139	13	9.4%	89^th
1991 Jul-Sep	81	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Oct-Nov	162	1	0.6%	17^th
1992 Jan-Mar	66	0	0.0%	0^th
1992 Apr-Jun	185	3	1.6%	30^th
1992 Jul-Sep	196	1	0.5%	12^th
1992 Oct-Oct	41	0	0.0%	0^th
1993 Jan-Mar	127	0	0.0%	0^th
1993 Apr-Jun	190	3	1.6%	32^nd
1993 Jul-Sep	164	1	0.6%	22^nd
1993 Oct-Nov	134	4	3.0%	65^th
1994 Jan-Mar	95	0	0.0%	0^th
1994 Apr-Jun	219	2	0.9%	25^th
1994 Jul-Sep	142	1	0.7%	17^th
1994 Oct-Nov	51	2	3.9%	63^rd

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
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills