James Pearson, former Senator for Kansas

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]

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 liberal–conservative 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:

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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 110^th 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%) Taxation (9%) Private Legislation (9%) Transportation and Public Works (7%)

Recent Bills

Some of Pearson’s most recently sponsored bills include...

View All » | View Cosponsors »

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.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
1962 Jan-Mar	17	0	0.0%	0^th
1962 Apr-Jun	62	7	11.3%	63^rd
1962 Jul-Sep	122	33	27.0%	93^rd
1962 Oct-Oct	18	1	5.6%	52^nd
1963 Jan-Mar	8	2	25.0%	79^th
1963 Apr-Jun	73	5	6.8%	53^rd
1963 Jul-Sep	61	7	11.5%	44^th
1963 Oct-Dec	87	27	31.0%	79^th
1964 Jan-Mar	60	8	13.3%	85^th
1964 Apr-Jun	138	7	5.1%	76^th
1964 Jul-Sep	106	34	32.1%	91^st
1964 Oct-Oct	1	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Jan-Mar	32	15	46.9%	97^th
1965 Apr-Jun	106	37	34.9%	97^th
1965 Jul-Sep	106	33	31.1%	88^th
1965 Oct-Oct	15	6	40.0%	78^th
1966 Jan-Mar	28	4	14.3%	39^th
1966 Apr-Jun	56	5	8.9%	15^th
1966 Jul-Sep	119	32	26.9%	85^th
1966 Oct-Oct	35	20	57.1%	74^th
1967 Jan-Mar	53	3	5.7%	10^th
1967 Apr-Jun	70	1	1.4%	2^nd
1967 Jul-Sep	81	6	7.4%	25^th
1967 Oct-Dec	111	6	5.4%	10^th
1968 Jan-Mar	69	3	4.3%	10^th
1968 Apr-Jun	96	13	13.5%	30^th
1968 Jul-Sep	89	5	5.6%	15^th
1968 Oct-Oct	27	2	7.4%	32^nd
1969 Jan-Mar	17	1	5.9%	35^th
1969 Apr-Jun	26	1	3.8%	16^th
1969 Jul-Sep	44	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Oct-Dec	158	13	8.2%	18^th
1970 Jan-Mar	100	14	14.0%	53^rd
1970 Apr-Jun	92	12	13.0%	53^rd
1970 Jul-Sep	123	13	10.6%	18^th
1970 Oct-Dec	106	13	12.3%	38^th
1971 Feb-Mar	25	3	12.0%	32^nd
1971 Apr-Jun	89	8	9.0%	21^st
1971 Jul-Sep	109	20	18.3%	57^th
1971 Oct-Dec	202	8	4.0%	12^th
1972 Jan-Mar	119	6	5.0%	16^th
1972 Apr-Jun	130	6	4.6%	19^th
1972 Jul-Sep	206	10	4.9%	28^th
1972 Oct-Oct	75	21	28.0%	69^th
1973 Jan-Mar	67	6	9.0%	51^st
1973 Apr-Jun	192	11	5.7%	21^st
1973 Jul-Sep	167	46	27.5%	93^rd
1973 Oct-Dec	168	42	25.0%	86^th
1974 Jan-Mar	94	9	9.6%	49^th
1974 Apr-Jun	179	6	3.4%	22^nd
1974 Jul-Sep	138	14	10.1%	55^th
1974 Oct-Dec	133	19	14.3%	56^th
1975 Jan-Mar	118	5	4.2%	38^th
1975 Apr-Jun	141	21	14.9%	70^th
1975 Jul-Sep	170	5	2.9%	12^th
1975 Oct-Dec	182	26	14.3%	76^th
1976 Jan-Mar	109	5	4.6%	34^th
1976 Apr-Jun	263	45	17.1%	70^th
1976 Jul-Sep	315	19	6.0%	20^th
1976 Oct-Oct	13	13	100.0%	84^th
1977 Jan-Mar	92	5	5.4%	31^st
1977 Apr-Jun	178	28	15.7%	78^th
1977 Jul-Sep	233	11	4.7%	36^th
1977 Oct-Dec	133	63	47.4%	94^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	8	10.3%	50^th
1978 Apr-Jun	119	26	21.8%	88^th
1978 Jul-Sep	237	49	20.7%	77^th
1978 Oct-Oct	86	32	37.2%	89^th

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

Sen. James Pearson

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