Sen. John Kerry

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Kerry is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2014 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 Kerry sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2009 to Dec 12, 2014. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Kerry was the primary sponsor of 36 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S. 2318 (112th): Department of State Rewards Program Update and Technical Corrections Act of 2012
• S. 3331 (112th): Intercountry Adoption Universal Accreditation Act of 2012
• S. 2013 (112th): A bill to amend title 32, United States Code, the body of laws of the United States dealing with the National Guard, to recognize the City of …
• S. 1984 (112th): Protect our Kids Act of 2011
• S. 1412 (112th): A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 462 Washington Street, Woburn, Massachusetts, as the “Officer John Maguire Post Office”.
• S. 960 (112th): Medicare IVIG Access Act
• S. 841 (111th): Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2010

View All »

Does 36 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

Kerry sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (26%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (21%) Health (12%) Government Operations and Politics (9%) Taxation (9%) Armed Forces and National Security (8%) Commerce (8%) Economics and Public Finance (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Kerry recently introduced the following legislation:

• S. 48 (113th): A bill for the relief of Genesio Januario Oliveira.
• S. 3702 (112th): A bill to provide grants to establish veteran’s treatment courts.
• S. 3691 (112th): Strengthening The Resiliency of Our Nation on the Ground Act
• S. 3689 (112th): Senior Airman Michael Malarsie Act
• S. 3686 (112th): Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2013
• S. 3665 (112th): Foster Youth Higher Education Opportunities Act
• S. 3627 (112th): Overseas Private Investment Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2012

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Key Votes

Missed Votes

From Jan 1985 to Jan 2013, Kerry missed 727 of 9,457 roll call votes, which is 7.7%. This is much worse than the median of 2.1% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Jan 2013. 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