John Johnston Jr., former Senator for Louisiana

Johnston was a senator from Louisiana and was a Democrat. He served from 1972 to 1996.

Photo of Sen. John Johnston [D-LA, 1972-1996]

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Johnston is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1996 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 Johnston sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 1991 to Oct 3, 1996. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Johnston was the primary sponsor of 46 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 46 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

Johnston sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Foreign Trade and International Finance (20%) Government Operations and Politics (18%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (17%) Energy (13%) Environmental Protection (11%) Economics and Public Finance (9%) Law (6%) Health (6%)

Recent Bills

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

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1973 to Oct 1996, Johnston missed 890 of 10,657 roll call votes, which is 8.4%. This is much worse than the median of 2.6% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1996. 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
1973 Jan-Mar	67	19	28.4%	94^th
1973 Apr-Jun	192	15	7.8%	38^th
1973 Jul-Sep	167	29	17.4%	94^th
1973 Oct-Dec	168	19	11.3%	69^th
1974 Jan-Mar	94	5	5.3%	31^st
1974 Apr-Jun	179	18	10.1%	69^th
1974 Jul-Sep	138	24	17.4%	81^st
1974 Oct-Dec	133	35	26.3%	75^th
1975 Jan-Mar	118	3	2.5%	50^th
1975 Apr-Jun	141	17	12.1%	65^th
1975 Jul-Sep	170	11	6.5%	45^th
1975 Oct-Dec	182	20	11.0%	60^th
1976 Jan-Mar	109	3	2.8%	15^th
1976 Apr-Jun	263	30	11.4%	65^th
1976 Jul-Sep	315	49	15.6%	70^th
1976 Oct-Oct	13	0	0.0%	0^th
1977 Jan-Mar	92	11	12.0%	60^th
1977 Apr-Jun	178	19	10.7%	56^th
1977 Jul-Sep	233	31	13.3%	96^th
1977 Oct-Dec	133	14	10.5%	48^th
1978 Jan-Mar	78	15	19.2%	80^th
1978 Apr-Jun	119	14	11.8%	72^nd
1978 Jul-Sep	237	124	52.3%	96^th
1978 Oct-Oct	86	10	11.6%	68^th
1979 Feb-Mar	32	2	6.2%	49^th
1979 Apr-Jun	121	16	13.2%	78^th
1979 Jul-Sep	171	9	5.3%	43^rd
1979 Oct-Dec	184	15	8.2%	54^th
1980 Jan-Mar	67	3	4.5%	41^st
1980 Apr-Jun	216	15	6.9%	38^th
1980 Jul-Sep	179	24	13.4%	89^th
1980 Oct-Dec	84	25	29.8%	89^th
1981 Jan-Mar	57	1	1.8%	41^st
1981 Apr-Jun	125	3	2.4%	48^th
1981 Jul-Sep	122	8	6.6%	70^th
1981 Oct-Dec	193	13	6.7%	61^st
1982 Feb-Mar	79	1	1.3%	27^th
1982 Apr-Jun	127	11	8.7%	75^th
1982 Jul-Sep	177	4	2.3%	41^st
1982 Oct-Dec	86	5	5.8%	70^th
1983 Feb-Mar	54	4	7.4%	70^th
1983 Apr-Jun	122	5	4.1%	59^th
1983 Jul-Sep	92	4	4.3%	57^th
1983 Oct-Nov	103	15	14.6%	74^th
1984 Jan-Mar	45	3	6.7%	61^st
1984 Apr-Jun	144	10	6.9%	59^th
1984 Jul-Sep	68	7	10.3%	80^th
1984 Oct-Oct	34	4	11.8%	83^rd
1985 Jan-Mar	22	1	4.5%	60^th
1985 Apr-Jun	116	3	2.6%	54^th
1985 Jul-Sep	60	3	5.0%	60^th
1985 Oct-Dec	183	11	6.0%	71^st
1986 Jan-Mar	51	2	3.9%	54^th
1986 Apr-Jun	103	2	1.9%	48^th
1986 Jul-Sep	149	2	1.3%	46^th
1986 Oct-Oct	56	1	1.8%	60^th
1987 Jan-Mar	50	2	4.0%	58^th
1987 Apr-Jun	123	16	13.0%	85^th
1987 Jul-Sep	120	2	1.7%	22^nd
1987 Oct-Dec	127	1	0.8%	12^th
1988 Jan-Mar	84	7	8.3%	58^th
1988 Apr-Jun	137	7	5.1%	68^th
1988 Jul-Sep	127	0	0.0%	0^th
1988 Oct-Oct	31	6	19.4%	85^th
1989 Jan-Mar	26	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Apr-Jun	77	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Jul-Sep	118	0	0.0%	0^th
1989 Oct-Nov	91	0	0.0%	0^th
1990 Jan-Mar	48	1	2.1%	62^nd
1990 Apr-Jun	95	1	1.1%	42^nd
1990 Jul-Sep	114	17	14.9%	99^th
1990 Oct-Oct	69	1	1.4%	68^th
1991 Jan-Mar	41	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Apr-Jun	74	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Jul-Sep	96	0	0.0%	0^th
1991 Oct-Nov	69	4	5.8%	79^th
1992 Jan-Mar	61	0	0.0%	0^th
1992 Apr-Jun	74	3	4.1%	74^th
1992 Jul-Sep	117	0	0.0%	0^th
1992 Oct-Oct	18	0	0.0%	0^th
1993 Feb-Mar	93	2	2.2%	80^th
1993 Apr-Jun	99	1	1.0%	31^st
1993 Jul-Sep	109	1	0.9%	42^nd
1993 Oct-Nov	94	2	2.1%	60^th
1994 Jan-Mar	86	13	15.1%	97^th
1994 Apr-Jun	92	1	1.1%	37^th
1994 Jul-Sep	136	3	2.2%	54^th
1994 Oct-Dec	15	0	0.0%	0^th
1995 Jan-Mar	125	20	16.0%	97^th
1995 Apr-Jun	171	1	0.6%	23^rd
1995 Jul-Sep	184	8	4.3%	85^th
1995 Oct-Dec	133	0	0.0%	0^th
1996 Jan-Mar	60	0	0.0%	0^th
1996 Apr-Jun	122	0	0.0%	0^th
1996 Jul-Sep	121	3	2.5%	78^th
1996 Oct-Oct	3	0	0.0%	0^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
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
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills

Sen. John Johnston Jr.

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