Eastland was a senator from Mississippi and was a Democrat. He served from 1943 to 1978.
He was previously a senator from Mississippi as a Democrat from 1941 to 1941.
![Photo of Sen. James Eastland [D-MS, 1943-1978]](/static/legislator-photos/403714-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Eastland is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1978 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 Eastland sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 15, 1978. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Eastland was the primary sponsor of 16 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 3151 (95th): Department of Justice Appropriation Authorization Act
- S. 2379 (95th): An Act for the relief of Jesusa Navarro Romero and Antonio Angeles Romero.
- S. 2687 (95th): A bill for the relief of Dr. Allan Joseph Cawley.
- S. 2509 (95th): A bill for the relief of Rodolfo N. Arriola.
- S. 2149 (95th): A bill to create the district court for the Northern Mariana Islands, implementing article IV of the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands ...
- S. 2089 (95th): An original bill to establish within the Department of Justice the position of Associate Attorney General.
- S. 3683 (94th): A bill for the relief of Dr. Juan Bautista Lopez Ruiz.
Does 16 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
Eastland sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Private Legislation (41%) Law (14%) Agriculture and Food (12%) Government Operations and Politics (12%) Transportation and Public Works (6%) Crime and Law Enforcement (6%) Immigration (5%)
Recent Bills
Some of Eastland’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- S. 3395 (95th): A bill for the relief of Jan Kutina.
- S. 3361 (95th): A bill for the relief of Mr. Danilo Zamora-Miranda and Mrs. Nidia ...
- S.Res. 467 (95th): A resolution waiving section 402(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 ...
- S. 3151 (95th): Department of Justice Appropriation Authorization Act
- S. 3020 (95th): A bill to provide for the conveyance to the Holmes County School ...
- S. 2980 (95th): A bill to facilitate the work of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; ...
- S.Res. 428 (95th): A resolution to authorize reimbursement of U.S. Marshal Service for service of ...
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jun 1941 to Oct 1978, Eastland missed 2,088 of 10,002 roll call votes, which is 20.9%. This is much worse than the median of 12.1% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1978. 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
- 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