Pearson was a senator from Kansas and was a Republican. He served from 1962 to 1978.
![Photo of Sen. James Pearson [R-KS, 1962-1978]](/static/legislator-photos/408571-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Pearson 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 Pearson sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 1973 to Oct 15, 1978. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Pearson was the primary sponsor of 2 bills that were enacted:
- S. 3383 (94th): National Weather Modification Policy Act
- S. 270 (94th): A bill to authorize the Secretary of Transportation to release restrictions on the use of certain property conveyed to the city of Elkhart, Kans., for airport purposes.
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
Pearson sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (24%) Commerce (15%) Economics and Public Finance (13%) Energy (12%) Agriculture and Food (12%) Private Legislation (9%) Taxation (9%) Transportation and Public Works (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Pearson recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 3585 (95th): A Bill for the relief of Robinson J. Munoz, doctor of medicine.
- S. 3255 (95th): A bill for the relief of Belino D. Iway, doctor of medicine, …
- S. 3251 (95th): A bill to provide for the distribution of certain funds appropriated to …
- S.Res. 447 (95th): A resolution relating to the importance of increasing agricultural exports from the …
- S. 2871 (95th): Rural Community Development Bank Act
- S. 2109 (95th): National Helium Conservation Policy Act
- S. 1980 (95th): National Climate Program Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Feb 1962 to Oct 1978, Pearson missed 985 of 7,072 roll call votes, which is 13.9%. This is on par with 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