Rep. James Oberstar

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Oberstar 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 ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Oberstar sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 2005 to Dec 21, 2010. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Oberstar was the primary sponsor of 50 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• H.R. 1746 (111th): Predisaster Hazard Mitigation Act of 2010
• H.R. 6516 (111th): To make technical corrections to provisions of law enacted by the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010.
• H.R. 6473 (111th): Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2010, Part IV
• H.R. 4853 (111th): Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010
• H.R. 3619 (111th): Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010
• H.R. 5900 (111th): Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010
• H.R. 5147 (111th): Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2010

View All »

Does 50 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

Oberstar sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Transportation and Public Works (25%) Government Operations and Politics (15%) Economics and Public Finance (12%) Environmental Protection (12%) Science, Technology, Communications (10%) Law (10%) Emergency Management (9%) Commerce (8%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Oberstar recently introduced the following legislation:

• H.R. 6519 (111th): Railroad Hours of Service Act of 2010
• H.R. 6516 (111th): To make technical corrections to provisions of law enacted by the Coast …
• H.R. 6473 (111th): Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2010, Part IV
• H.R. 6464 (111th): Firefighter Safety Enhancement Act of 2010
• H.Res. 1665 (111th): Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010
• H.R. 6167 (111th): Shipping Act of 2010
• H.Res. 1648 (111th): Supporting the goals and ideals of National Adoption Day and National Adoption …

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 1975 to Dec 2010, Oberstar missed 804 of 21,297 roll call votes, which is 3.8%. This is on par with 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, major life events, and running for higher office.

Show the numbers...

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
• Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
• GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills