Rep. James Blanchard
Former Representative for Michigan’s 18th District
Blanchard was the representative for Michigan’s 18th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1975 to 1982.
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Blanchard is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 1982 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 Blanchard sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1977 to Dec 21, 1982. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Blanchard was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 2903 (97th): A bill to extend by one year the expiration date of the Defense Production Act of 1950.
- H.J.Res. 375 (96th): A bill designating April 13 through April 19 of 1980 as “Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust.
Does 2 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
Blanchard sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (30%) Economics and Public Finance (29%) Social Welfare (11%) International Affairs (9%) Taxation (7%) Armed Forces and National Security (5%) Finance and Financial Sector (5%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Blanchard recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.J.Res. 610 (97th): A joint resolution to extend the Defense Production Act of 1950.
- H.R. 6760 (97th): Fair Trade Finance Act of 1982
- H.R. 5540 (97th): Defense Industrial Base Revitalization Act
- H.Con.Res. 136 (97th): A concurrent resolution expressing the sense of the Congress that the United …
- H.R. 3600 (97th): Great Lakes Protection Act of 1982
- H.R. 3052 (97th): A bill to amend title XVI of the Social Security Act to …
- H.Con.Res. 109 (97th): A concurrent resolution expressing the sense of Congress with respect to the …
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1975 to Dec 1982, Blanchard missed 427 of 4,901 roll call votes, which is 8.7%. This is on par with the median of 7.8% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 1982. 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
