John Slack Jr., former Representative for West Virginia's 3rd Congressional District

Slack was the representative for West Virginia’s 3^rd congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1963 to 1980.

He was previously the representative for West Virginia’s 6^th congressional district as a Democrat from 1959 to 1962.

Enacted Legislation

Slack was the primary sponsor of 9 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

H.R. 4892 (96th): A bill to repeal section 506 of the Communications Act of 1934.
H.R. 4392 (96th): Department of State, Justice, and Commerce, the Judiciary and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, 1980
H.R. 12934 (95th): Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriation Act
H.R. 7556 (95th): Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriation Act
H.R. 3374 (95th): Petroleum Marketing Practices Act
H.R. 14239 (94th): Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriation Act
H.R. 4113 (94th): A bill for the relief of Mitsue Karimata Stone.

View All »

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 110^th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Slack sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:

Government Operations and Politics (24%) Economics and Public Finance (17%) Social Welfare (13%) Taxation (11%) Armed Forces and National Security (11%) Health (8%) Law (8%) Labor and Employment (8%)

Recent Bills

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

View All » | View Cosponsors »

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Jan 1959 to Apr 1980, Slack missed 459 of 7,306 roll call votes, which is 6.3%. This is better than the median of 8.6% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Apr 1980. 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
1959 Jan-Apr	16	0	0.0%	0^th
1959 May-Aug	54	2	3.7%	71^st
1959 Sep-Sep	17	0	0.0%	0^th
1960 Feb-Apr	23	0	0.0%	0^th
1960 May-Aug	70	0	0.0%	0^th
1961 Jan-Apr	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1961 May-Aug	65	4	6.2%	82^nd
1961 Sep-Sep	29	1	3.4%	60^th
1962 Jan-Mar	21	0	0.0%	0^th
1962 Apr-Jun	32	0	0.0%	0^th
1962 Jul-Sep	49	0	0.0%	0^th
1962 Oct-Oct	22	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Jan-Mar	9	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Apr-Jun	31	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Jul-Sep	28	0	0.0%	0^th
1963 Oct-Dec	50	3	6.0%	73^rd
1964 Jan-Mar	26	2	7.7%	88^th
1964 Apr-Jun	34	1	2.9%	57^th
1964 Jul-Sep	49	0	0.0%	0^th
1964 Oct-Oct	4	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Jan-Mar	28	0	0.0%	0^th
1965 Apr-Jun	53	6	11.3%	60^th
1965 Jul-Sep	98	11	11.2%	68^th
1965 Oct-Oct	22	4	18.2%	63^rd
1966 Jan-Mar	30	4	13.3%	67^th
1966 Apr-Jun	51	2	3.9%	24^th
1966 Jul-Sep	72	4	5.6%	26^th
1966 Oct-Oct	40	6	15.0%	45^th
1967 Jan-Mar	31	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Apr-Jun	57	0	0.0%	0^th
1967 Jul-Sep	59	3	5.1%	68^th
1967 Oct-Dec	98	2	2.0%	41^st
1968 Jan-Mar	38	0	0.0%	0^th
1968 Apr-Jun	79	1	1.3%	24^th
1968 Jul-Sep	91	2	2.2%	28^th
1968 Oct-Oct	25	0	0.0%	0^th
1969 Jan-Mar	16	2	12.5%	75^th
1969 Apr-Jun	28	1	3.6%	23^rd
1969 Jul-Sep	45	4	8.9%	44^th
1969 Oct-Dec	88	2	2.3%	14^th
1970 Jan-Mar	35	2	5.7%	31^st
1970 Apr-Jun	74	8	10.8%	29^th
1970 Jul-Sep	76	7	9.2%	40^th
1970 Oct-Dec	81	3	3.7%	13^th
1971 Jan-Mar	22	1	4.5%	32^nd
1971 Apr-Jun	90	11	12.2%	47^th
1971 Jul-Sep	74	5	6.8%	42^nd
1971 Oct-Dec	134	15	11.2%	48^th
1972 Jan-Mar	64	1	1.6%	12^th
1972 Apr-Jun	114	27	23.7%	79^th
1972 Jul-Sep	101	10	9.9%	53^rd
1972 Oct-Oct	50	2	4.0%	20^th
1973 Jan-Mar	36	0	0.0%	0^th
1973 Apr-Jun	191	6	3.1%	17^th
1973 Jul-Sep	131	8	6.1%	56^th
1973 Oct-Dec	182	6	3.3%	26^th
1974 Jan-Mar	79	13	16.5%	85^th
1974 Apr-Jun	170	16	9.4%	48^th
1974 Jul-Sep	148	5	3.4%	29^th
1974 Oct-Dec	141	9	6.4%	32^nd
1975 Jan-Mar	68	0	0.0%	0^th
1975 Apr-Jun	199	12	6.0%	51^st
1975 Jul-Sep	154	9	5.8%	52^nd
1975 Oct-Dec	191	8	4.2%	39^th
1976 Jan-Mar	106	0	0.0%	0^th
1976 Apr-Jun	267	15	5.6%	30^th
1976 Jul-Sep	281	16	5.7%	45^th
1976 Oct-Oct	7	1	14.3%	72^nd
1977 Jan-Mar	100	6	6.0%	50^th
1977 Apr-Jun	273	21	7.7%	51^st
1977 Jul-Sep	198	6	3.0%	29^th
1977 Oct-Dec	135	9	6.7%	51^st
1978 Jan-Mar	150	28	18.7%	88^th
1978 Apr-Jun	300	9	3.0%	20^th
1978 Jul-Sep	308	42	13.6%	74^th
1978 Oct-Oct	76	11	14.5%	81^st
1979 Jan-Mar	63	1	1.6%	29^th
1979 Apr-Jun	221	6	2.7%	17^th
1979 Jul-Sep	198	14	7.1%	53^rd
1979 Oct-Dec	190	16	8.4%	42^nd
1980 Jan-Mar	124	7	5.6%	34^th
1980 Apr-Jun	4	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
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
GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills

Rep. John Slack Jr.

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