Tanner was the representative for Tennessee’s 8th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1989 to 2010.
![Photo of Rep. John Tanner [D-TN8, 1989-2010]](/static/legislator-photos/400395-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Tanner is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2010 positioned according to our liberal–conservative ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Tanner sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 2005 to Dec 21, 2010. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Tanner was the primary sponsor of 4 bills that were enacted:
- H.R. 4532 (111th): Social Security Disability Applicants’ Access to Professional Representation Act of 2010
- H.R. 4218 (111th): No Social Security Benefits for Prisoners Act of 2009
- H.R. 3325 (111th): WIPA and PABSS Reauthorization Act of 2009
- H.R. 987 (110th): NATO Freedom Consolidation Act of 2007
Does 4 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
Tanner sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Social Welfare (21%) Health (19%) Government Operations and Politics (15%) Economics and Public Finance (13%) International Affairs (11%) Taxation (8%) Law (8%) Armed Forces and National Security (6%)
Recent Bills
Some of Tanner’s most recently sponsored bills include...
- H.R. 4918 (111th): Redistricting Transparency Act of 2010
- H.R. 4532 (111th): Social Security Disability Applicants’ Access to Professional Representation Act of 2010
- H.R. 4218 (111th): No Social Security Benefits for Prisoners Act of 2009
- H.R. 3325 (111th): WIPA and PABSS Reauthorization Act of 2009
- H.R. 3306 (111th): Social Security Number Privacy and Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2009
- H.R. 3025 (111th): Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act of 2009
- H.Res. 527 (111th): Commending the NATO School for its critical support of North Atlantic Treaty ...
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 1989 to Dec 2010, Tanner missed 529 of 13,661 roll call votes, which is 3.9%. This is on par with the median of 3.1% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2010. 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
