Sen. John Melcher

Analysis

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Melcher is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 1988 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 Melcher sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 26, 1983 to Oct 22, 1988. See full analysis methodology.

Enacted Legislation

Melcher was the primary sponsor of 37 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

• S.J.Res. 335 (100th): A joint resolution to designate the last full week of October, October 23 through October 29, 1988, as “National Adult Immunization Awareness Week”.
• S. 1704 (100th): A bill to authorize the establishment of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Site in the State of Montana.
• S. 659 (100th): Agricultural Aid and Trade Missions Act
• S. 2830 (100th): Federal Crop Insurance Commission Act of 1988
• S. 1889 (100th): Geothermal Steam Act Amendments of 1988
• S. 2641 (100th): Temporary Emergency Wildfire Suppression Act
• S. 2273 (100th): A bill to provide for the transfer of certain funds to the Secretary of the Interior for the benefit of certain members of the Crow Tribe.

View All »

Does 37 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

Melcher sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Native Americans (19%) Agriculture and Food (15%) Public Lands and Natural Resources (12%) Social Welfare (12%) Environmental Protection (11%) Economics and Public Finance (11%) Government Operations and Politics (11%) Taxation (9%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Melcher recently introduced the following legislation:

• S.Res. 512 (100th): A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the Secretary of …
• S. 2831 (100th): A bill to require that the Consumer Price Index for all urban …
• S. 2832 (100th): A bill to provide that the Bureau of Labor Statistics conduct a …
• S. 2830 (100th): Federal Crop Insurance Commission Act of 1988
• S. 2826 (100th): Wildfire Suppression Assistance Act
• S. 2801 (100th): A bill to amend the Older Americans Act of 1965 to hold …
• S. 2751 (100th): Montana Natural Resources Protection and Utilization Act of 1988

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1977 to Oct 1988, Melcher missed 365 of 5,377 roll call votes, which is 6.8%. This is on par with the median of 5.9% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Oct 1988. 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
• 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