Simmons was a senator from Rhode Island and was a Republican. He served from 1857 to 1863.
He was previously a senator from Rhode Island as a Whig from 1841 to 1847.
Alleged misconduct & resolution
Simmons faced an allegation of using his influence to obtain contracts for Rhode Island rifle manufacturers in exchange for payment. On Jul. 14, 1862, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary recommended that Senate take such action as it deemed appropriate, but also that the charges were all true. On Aug. 15, 1862, he resigned.
| Jul. 14, 1862 | Senate Committee on the Judiciary recommended that Senate take such action as it deemed appropriate, but also that the charges were all true |
| Aug. 15, 1862 | Resigned. |
![Photo of Sen. James Simmons [R-RI, 1857-1863]](/static/legislator-photos/409911-200px.jpeg)
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Mar 1841 to Jul 1862, Simmons missed 809 of 3,373 roll call votes, which is 24.0%. This is on par with the median of 20.5% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Jul 1862. 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
- Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
