Moakley was the representative for Massachusetts’s 9th congressional district and was most recently a Democrat (1975-2001) and previously an Ind. Democrat (1973-1974). He served from 1973 to 2001.
![Photo of Rep. John Moakley [D-MA9, 1973-2001]](/static/legislator-photos/400600-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Moakley is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2002 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 Moakley sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 7, 1997 to Nov 19, 2002. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Moakley was the primary sponsor of 9 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.R. 2778 (106th): Taunton River Wild and Scenic River Study Act of 2000
- H.R. 4204 (103rd): To designate the Federal building located at 711 Washington Street in Boston, Massachusetts, as the “Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging”.
- H.R. 2332 (102nd): Immigration-Salvadorans bill
- H.R. 293 (101st): Fire Safe Cigarette Act of 1990
- H.R. 3931 (99th): A bill to designate the General Services Administration building known as the “United States Appraiser’s Stores Building” in Boston, Massachusetts as the “Captain John Foster Williams Coast ...
- H.R. 1880 (98th): Cigarette Safety Act of 1984
- H.J.Res. 258 (98th): A joint resolution designating August 3, 1983 as “National Paralyzed Veterans Recognition Day”.
Does 9 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 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Moakley sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (18%) Law (18%) Commerce (15%) Education (12%) Foreign Trade and International Finance (12%) Labor and Employment (9%) Armed Forces and National Security (9%) Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues (6%)
Recent Bills
Some of Moakley’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.R. 1663 (107th): Health Insurance Continuation Improvement Act of 2001
- H.R. 1594 (107th): Foreign Military Training Responsibility Act
- H.R. 3807 (106th): Stable Oil Supply Home Heating Act
- H.R. 2778 (106th): Taunton River Wild and Scenic River Study Act of 2000
- H.R. 1130 (106th): Fire Safe Cigarette Act of 1999
- H.R. 732 (106th): To close the United States Army School of the Americas.
- H.R. 4343 (105th): To amend the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 regarding the application of ...
Voting Record
Missed Votes
From Jan 1973 to May 2001, Moakley missed 1,554 of 15,562 roll call votes, which is 10.0%. This is much worse than the median of 2.8% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in May 2001. 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.
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
